Earthbound

AScience Fiction Novel

Earthbound

By MILTON LESSER

Jacket illustration by Peter Poulton Endpaper design by Alex Schomburg

Cecile Matschat, Editor Car/ Carmer, Consulting Editor

THE JOHN C. WINSTON COMPANY

Philadelphia * Toronto

«

Copyright, 1952 BY MILTON LESSER

Copyright in Great Britain and in the British Dominions

and Possession is Copyright in the Republic of the Philippines

FIRST  EDITION

Made in the United States of America L. G. Card #52-5493

For My Mother

ANew Frontier

Due to the nature of their profession, scientists are cautious people. If this weren't so, they'd spend I their time exploring hopeful but fruitless blind alleys. Yet most scientists and engineers you speak to today will insist that space travel lies no more than fifty years in the future—and many of them are willing to compress that figure to a mere five years!

The first flight to the moon and beyond is within the offing of our lifetime, and surely, as one science-fic-tionist so aptly put it, "Columbus was a piker!" by comparison. So a glorious new frontier is soon to be opened . . . but it will make all previous frontiers look a lot like your neighbor's back yard.

We will not speak in terms of hundreds of miles, but of millions.

Arctic cold will seem like a Turkish bath, if you're on the dark side of the moon.

You'd need earlaps in the Matto Grosso jungle, if you happened to come from the sunward hemisphere of Mercury.

In short, were in for some mighty stimulating changes.

Basically, however, one element will remain the same, and that element is man. Of course, life won't be quite the same after the advent of space travel. The limitless imagination of science fiction will give way to the endless facts of everyday life. Yet man will survive more or less as we know him today. Old emotions will be there . . . naturally, faced with new problems, but the gamut from love through desire and fear to hate will still cover all facets of life. . . .

But high adventure will await tomorrow's youth as it never awaited any generation before them. And because I believe Earthbound is a story of high adventure more than it is anything else, that's an important thing to remember. The youngsters on the corner won't play cops-and-robbers any more, but spacers-and-pirates; their older brothers won't dream of baseball, but of rockets and the far horizons; and you won't talk of your cousin in Salt Lake City, but in Canal City—which will be on Mars.

And West Point? Well, West Point will be only a quaint historic shrine on the banks of the Hudson. Sure, you'll be able to visit it on a tourist trip around the vicinity of the little-used Greater New York Port Area . . . but you'd rather inspect the gleaming new Solar Academy, which trains men for the stars.. . .

MX.

Contents

CHAPTER                                                                                             PAGE

A New Frontier........................................... vli

1.    Washed Out!...........................................        1

2.    Big Pete and Little Pete  ....          11

3.    Carnival of the Worlds...........................        21

4.    Bargain with Ganymede Gus ...       28

5.    At the Spaceport......................................        35

6.    Reunion..................................................       43

7.    See-Gar Goes to Space............................       52

8.    Pirates!................................................... ...... 67

9.    Red-Handed...........................................       78

10.    Jailbreak!............................................... ..... 90

11.    Beyond the Land of Fire .    .   .    .              101

12.    The Last Frontier.................................... ..... 114

13.    Escape!..................................................       126

14.    White Sands Again..................................       141

15.    Balked!................................................... ..... 155

16.    Blast-Off!................................................       165

17.    Luna....................................................... ..... 175

18.    In the Swarm........................................... ..... 187

19.    And Far Away.........................................       196

Glossary.................................................      207

Earthbound

Chapter 1

Washed Out!

PETE HODGES groped about the dormitory room in the dim half-light of early morning, found his rain slicker and donned it. He raised a finger to his lips for silence, then whispered, "Are you ready?" When his roommate nodded eagerly, Pete opened the door and peered out into the hall. The blue night lights cast his crouching shadow back into the room. The hall was silent, deserted. Pete waited only for a moment, looking carefully in both directions, listening to the rain drumming incessantly on the hall window. After that, he stepped out into the hall, aware that Garr MacDougal's tall, lanky form followed him.

Together, they reached the far end of the hall. They looked anxiously down the escalator well. "Hear anything?" Garr wanted to know.

Pete shook his head. "No. Come on—" The two roommates allowed themselves this breach of dormitory regulations once a week. In an hour—at six o'clock—the Spaceport would explode in violent activity. The great, gleaming liners would blast off for Venus, for Mars, for the asteroids and the Jovian

Barihbound

moons. Ground crews would scurry about furiously, doing last-minute things. Passengers would wave gay farewells to their earthbound friends and relatives. Cargoes would be loaded—refrigeration equipment for hot, tropical Venus, machinery for Mars, mining tools for the asteroids, hothouse plants for the dome-cities of the Jovian moons.

But Pete and Garr would see all this only as so much background. They would come to see the proud space-liners themselves, and nothing else would matter. The liners of polished steel and quartzite windows, the liners standing on their tails in readiness, pointing straight up at the sky and beyond it. . . .

The roommates splashed and stumbled along the muddy path which led from their dormitory to the athletic field and out across it to the Spaceport highway. Soon they were jogging along the shoulder of the road, watching the jet-cars streak by toward the Spaceport Panting, Garr related a joke about a frightened Solar Cadet on his first flight, but Pete hardly listened. His thoughts had soared far ahead to the Spaceport and to a day next week when they would receive their rockets. He would keep his emblem polished and wear it proudly on his tunic, and soon after that his home would be out there in the far-distant sky.

They reached the foot of a steep hill where the rain-swollen streams gushed down angrily. Here they left the road to climb the side of the hill. Soon their boots made a sucking sound in the mud, and more than once they tripped in the treacherous footing.

"You would bring me out here on a day like this!"

Garr moaned. But he was smiling, and Pete knew he too loved the Spaceport and all that it meant.

Pete clambered up over the last muddy ridge. Ahead of him the hill fell away sharply, almost like a cliff. Below it and stretching out to the horizon was the Spaceport, a broad flat plain of white, dotted with the dark maws of the firing-pits. Beyond these were the clusters of administration buildings, shining brightly even through the rain. And three of the firing-pits were not empty!

"See?" Pete cried, pounding Garr's back. "See? There'll be three blast-offs this morning! We might be on one just like them—next week."

Now they could wait and catch their breath, now they could talk, for according to Pete's wrist chronometer, it would be half an hour before the first ship thundered away. But strangely, little talk passed between them; the sight of the Spaceport was enough, even through the early morning murk and the rain. What undreamed-of adventures awaited the young spacemen out there in the silent ships? Mars with its rusty, age-old sands, or Venus with its myriads of tropical islands . . . ?

"Are you afraid, Garr?"

"You mean scared that we'll be caught? Of course not! Who'll come out here in the rain, except a couple of crazy Cadets?"

"I don't mean that," Pete said. "I mean about next week—after we get our rockets. We'll be men after that."

Garr laughed. "We'll be seventeen, you mean." "We'll be men," Pete repeated. He ran a hand through his black hair thoroughly drenched by the rain. "Only men can take the ships—up there."

"I. . ." Garr began. Then, "Listen! Do you hear it?"

Softly it came to them, from far away, the muted refrain of the Spaceman s Chant. Tiny dots across the field, the spacemen had emerged from their quarters, and were heading for their ships. They sang as they marched, the words bringing a lump to Pete's throat:

"We'll thunder off to lo, Out in the Jovian Moons. Well feast our eyes and seek the skies And plunder Martian ruins!"

Pete had heard that verse before. He knew them all. With Garr, he joined in the chorus, and suddenly the pouring rain was forgotten.

"Ho! for the void and far away! Well chase the stars and race old Mars And maybe land one day— Ho-ho—Ho\ for the void and far away!"

"That's us," Garr said. "Hey, can you picture us out there, where the Earth's only a bright star, where ..."

"Hold it!" Pete hissed. "Someone's coming."

Pete heard the footsteps coming closer, sloshing up the muddy hillside. With Garr, he ducked behind an outcropping of rock and waited. Presently someone appeared, called loudly, "Hodges! Hodges, come on out. I know you're there!"

Garr grunted. "It's Roger. What the heck does he want?"

Pete knew that every school, and that included the Solar Cadets, too, had its Mr. Unpopular, a student who bullied the lowerclassmen and who made life generally unpleasant for everyone. Here at the Solar Academy it was Roger Gorham. But Pete and Garr had made it pretty clear to Roger from time to time that they wanted no part of him. Then why had he followed them?

Roger snickered. "I hope you guys don't mind if I tell you that you sure can't sing. Boy, did you ruin that song."

"Can you do better?" Garr bristled. "At least we like the song—and what it stands for. That's more than I can say . . ."

"Forget it," Pete cut in. "You came here for a reason. What is it?"

"There was an office-gram for you, Hodges."

"At five o'clock in the morning?"

"I didn't come out here in the rain to argue with you, Hodges. The office-gram buzzer in your room woke me up, and I couldn't go back to sleep because no one answered it. I knocked on your door, got no answer. So I walked in. There was this gram, and it said urgent."

"What else did it say?" Pete asked him.

"You don't think I read it?"

"What else did it say?"

"Well, I—yeah, I read it. I didn't want to come out here in this storm if it wasn't important. But I better not tell you, Hodges. You can go back and find out for yourself."

Garr, still angry, took a different tack. "How did you know where to find us?"

"Are you kidding? Everyone knows you two come here once a week, even the officers, I think. It's a big joke."

"Very funny," said Garr.

Roger shrugged. "Anyway, this gram is important, Hodges, You better hustle on back and read it."

Pete looked at Garr. "Why don't you stay here and watch the blast-off?"

"Umm-mm. No, I think I'll go back with you. If Roger thinks it's important, but won't tell you why-well, I'd better go with you, that's all."

Pete nodded and stalked down the hill. The rain had slowed to a trickle and the sun showed signs of rising in the east and bringing up a clear day with it. Roger would not have ventured out in the rain unless, unless what? Roger envied them, envied their grades, their athletic ability, their comradeship. If they were in some kind of trouble, he'd gloat. Now, as they walked back along the edge of the highway, he had a smug look on his face.

Pete did not like it at all.

The gram was simple and to the point: Cadet Hodges, report to the Marshal's office. Please prepare yourself for a shock. This is urgent.

"See?" Roger was smiling.

"Thanks for telling me," Pete said numbly.

Garr's freckled face split into a broad grin. "Don't you worry about it one bit, Pete. You know how they have a way of exaggerating things." His voice trailed off lamely."

"Sure," Pete said. "Sure."

And then he was walking briskly out through the door. Behind him he heard Roger saying, "Boy, does he look scared!"

Pete took the elevator down to the ground level, then boarded one of the moving ramps which took him quickly across campus to the Headquarters Building. The Marshal's secretary looked up from her desk, and Pete told her: "I'm Cadet Hodges."

"Oh."

"I—I got an office-gram."

"Yes, I know. Don't mind us, cadet. We work twenty-four hours a day. Three shifts, three Marshals. I think he'll see you now. Good luck." As Pete passed her desk, the woman averted her face.

Pete pushed open the door at the far end of the little reception room. He stood very erect when he walked inside.

"Good morning, Cadet Hodges. Relax, young man. At your ease."

Pete could tell at a glance that the Marshal was an ex-spaceman. He didn't know how, but he could tell. He had gray hair and his eyes were tired, but something in those eyes said, clearer than any words: I've seen space. . . .

"I called you at once, Cadet Hodges, because this was important. Next week is graduation, and your family might be coming here to see—but I'm getting ahead of myself." He thumbed rapidly through some papers on his desk. "Your grades are fine, Hodges. You're in the top third of the senior class. You've handled yourself in athletics with flying colors. You even have a propensity for sneaking off in the morning to visit the Spaceport!"

"What, sir?"

The Marshal smiled. "We know all about that. Officially, it's against regulations. But unofficially, we like it. I did the same thing myself, Hodges, thirty years ago. If space is in your blood, that's what you do.

"Hodges, before I go any further, realize this: for all our thunder and our noise, spaceflight is still in its infancy. We reached the moon sixty years ago, Mars fifty. Everything is new, and dangerous. As a result, the spaceman must be a perfect specimen. Each man is a cog in a great machine; he can be nothing more than that. He must act as one with his fellow crewmen, and as one with the complex machinery of a spaceship. It could mean disaster for everyone concerned if he didn't.

"He must have rapid reflexes, on the order of seventy percent above average. And still he must be able to suspend judgment. He must have a body which will respond instantly to those reflexes. And finally, as you know, he must be young. Seventeen to twenty-five, and that's all. Past twenty-five, his reflexes slow down just slightly, but sufficiently to be dangerous. And that's a spaceman, Cadet Hodges. It's important that I tell you this, as you'll see."

Pete had heard all that many times before. But what was the Marshal getting at? Why did he single him out—at six o'clock in the morning?

"The Academy is a huge, complex enterprise, Cadet Hodges. It is inevitable that clerical errors will occur from time to time. One such error occurred where you are concerned. I have reference to your first-year medical report."

Pete remembered that day dimly, four years ago, when a frightened, skinny kid of thirteen named Peter Hodges had been given his medical exam. They'd been thorough; they'd done everything. And he had come through with flying colors—or so he had thought.

The Marshal's voice had become cold and businesslike, and it snapped Pete from his reverie. "There is a memo attached to your medical report to the eifect that you had an old injury which did not heal properly. Do you know anything about it, Cadet Hodges? A broken collarbone?"

"Why, yes! I was ten or eleven, I forget which. I was playing out on the spacefield when a guard ran after me. I tripped and fell. . ."

"You broke your collarbone," the Marshal went on for him, "It did not knit properly, and the report indicates that it was a nasty break, a double compound fracture. Somehow the report was overlooked these last four years, but fortunately it was found in time. For any normal activity, the injury has healed satisfactorily. But not for spaceflight, Cadet Hodges. I'm sorry."

Pete stood there, the words drumming in his mind over and over again. But not for spaceflight. . . .

"As you know," the Marshal was saying, "acceleration is a rugged affair. The human body was built to withstand a pressure of one gravity, which is what it normally encounters on the surface of the Earth. In order to blast off, however, a spaceship must build up tremendous speed. Rate of increase of velocity, that's acceleration, Hodges. And it means that the body is faced with a pressure of five or five and a half

gravities instead of one. At times that must be increased to six. Such a pressure, according to the judgment of the medical board, might be sufficient to re-break your collarbone along the line of the old injury. If that were to happen in deep space, you would be a danger to your passengers and the crew.

"It is therefore the decision of the medical board that you be eliminated from candidacy for a spaceman's rockets. I am sorry, Hodges; truly sorry. It is further the decision of the board that you notify your family at once and prepare to depart from the Academy. . . ."

The impersonal voice droned on and on. The Marshal was sorry to break the news so suddenly, but he had only found out himself this morning. It was considered necessary to inform Cadet Hodges immediately, in order that he would not go ahead with his plans for graduation. It was possible he might be transferred to a ground-crew school to do earthbound maintenance work. . . .

But Pete heard nothing. He waited until the Marshal had finished, and then he saluted smartly, turned on his heel and left the room. Somehow, his eyes had clouded over; he could hardly see the receptionist at her desk.

In his mind, the spacemen were singing their chant again. Ho! for the void and far away! But he was washed out. . . .

Big Pete and Little Pete

I*IETE walked about aimlessly for a time, watching the Academy campus come to life. By the time * he returned to his room, Garr had gone to his first morning class. A big note was tacked to their makeshift bulletin board. "See you soon, Petey-boy. See-garr."

At any other time, Pete would have laughed. A year ago, Garr had retreated to the sheltered area behind the athletic field with his prize possession, a cigar. To this day, no one knew where he had found it, but everyone knew that he had attempted to smoke it. A very green and very ill Garr had returned to the dormitory, and since then no one had let him live down his nickname, See-garr.

Hardly aware of what he was doing, Pete opened his bureau drawers and began to pile his gear neatly on his bunk. When the whistle ending the first morning period had sounded, he'd finished packing his clothing, and he sat on the bunk, staring at his suitcases. Mere hours before, he thought he'd soon be taking them to some far-away place, to Mars perhaps;

but now he knew he'd be returning with them to his folks' home in White Sands. Well, at least he'd be able to see the space-liners blasting off, for with the advent of space travel the old White Sands proving grounds had become the world's largest Spaceport.

ƒ am Peter Hodges, Jr., he thought numbly. Dad is a retired space-captain, and Dad likes to watch the Spaceport too. Now I'll have to watch it with him, while he dreams of the past and I dream of what might have been. .. .

"Hey! You cut first period or something? What gives?" Smiling, Garr stood in the open doorway.

"Yes," Pete told him. "I cut my first period."

"Well, you missed something. Old Doc Caruthers really was in form. I mean, really in form! He gave us a picture of Mars so you almost thought your feet were crunching through those ochre sands."

"It sounds fine," Pete said.

"When I get my commission, I hope it's Mars."

"I hope so too, Garr. I hope you get everything you want."

"Thanks! Yeah, and—why in space did you pack your bags?"

"I'm leaving the Academy." "You're what?" "Leaving the Academy."

"Well," Garr was still smiling, "don't tell me they have a special mission for you before graduation! That happens sometimes, Pete. Where are they sending you? Oh, maybe it's a secret."

"No, it's not a secret. I'm going home to White Sands."

"You lucky guy! You'll be able to see your folks before they ship you off."

Pete slammed his hand down on one of the suitcases. "Cut it out, Garr! Please cut it out." He felt a lump rising in his throat, the same kind he always felt when they were singing the Spaceman's Chant, only this time it was bigger and he had a hunch it might not go away.

The smile left Garr's face slowly, and a confused frown replaced it. "Did I say something wrong? I don't get it. What's the matter, Pete; what is it?"

"I'm washed out," Pete said stiffly. And then he found himself telling the whole story, everything.

When he finished, Garr was silent. He crossed the room and sat down on the other bunk, rubbing a hand across his freckled cheek. Finally, he said:

"That's a rotten break, Pete. I—I guess talk isn't much good, but it's a rotten break. Heck, if it happened to me, it wouldn't be so bad. No one in my family ever went to space. Sometimes they almost make a joke of it. 'With all this room on Earth,' they say, 'what does a MacDougal want with the stars?' But with you it's different. Your father was a spaceman—a real famous one from what I hear. And didn't you once tell me something about your older brother getting killed out in the asteroids . . ."

"Stop it!" Pete cried. "What do you want to rub it in for?"

"Huh? I'm sorry, Pete. I was only trying—" "No, forget it. I'm sorry. I've got no business snapping at you like that." But the way he felt, Pete knew he'd snap at anyone and everyone. It might be a good

idea if he could go away some place, far from all the familiar things, far from the Spaceman's Chant and

the roar of the rockets___ No, that wasn't right, either.

Life wouldn't be worth much without the rockets rising on their glorious pillars of flame. . . .

"Hi, fellows!" Roger Gorham pushed the door open and came inside. Somehow, Roger always managed to look smug and self-satisfied. He made a practice of it, despite the fact that he was the most unpopular cadet at the Academy; and he let everyone know that his father was Burton Gorham of Gorham Spacelines.

"Scram," Garr said coldly.

Roger ignored him. "I came to find out how urgent that office-gram was."

"Plenty urgent," Garr told him. "Now scram."

"Hodges . .    Roger began.

"What?"

"About that office-gram . . ."

"Don't you see," Garr stormed, "he wants to know exactly what went on between you and the Marshal. Say the word, Pete, and I'll throw him out."

But Pete said, "I've been washed out." He'd grown used to it by now. He could say it without batting an eyelash, but it left an empty feeling deep inside.

"Don't tell me they gave you the bounce for sneaking off to your little hill and watching the spaceships!" Roger was incredulous. "I admit it's a kid's trick, but they shouldn't bounce you for something like that."

"You wouldn't understand about that hill," Garr said. "Not you."

"There's nothing to understand. You're kids, so you act like kids. You're from the wrong side of the tracks and things like spaceships are so new and different to you . . ."

Garr got up swiftly and grabbed the front of Roger's tunic, tugging until he brought the chunky cadet's face within a few inches of his own. "Listen!" Garr shouted. "Maybe I'm from the wrong side of the tracks like you say—but not Pete. Pete's father is a retired space-captain, or didn't you know?"

Roger backed away. "Let go of me! There, that's better. A retired space-captain," he snickered, "now isn't that something? He goes to Mars a few times or maybe to the Jovian moons. He's a hero after that, retiring when he's twenty-five and living off a fat pension. That's what he's been doing for the last twenty years—living on a pension. Now, take my dad . . ."

"You can take him," Garr said, thoroughly disgusted. "We don't want him. As for Mr. Hodges, he happens to be chairman of the Spaceflight Advisory Board."

"Of course," Roger persisted. "A soft armchair job for an ex-spaceman living on his reputation, too lazy to work . . ."

He couldn't retreat through the opened door in time. Pete sailed into him with fists flying, and soon they were down on the floor, rolling over and over. Roger was strong, fighting with the desperation that a coward uses when he knows he cannot run away; but Pete fought with a blind fury.

Dimly, he was aware of Roger striking back. But the fists bounced off his face and chest with almost no sensation at all. His father had told him that once: Big Pete had said, "When you fight, fight hard—but don't start it, not unless you have to. Forget about the other fellow, he can't hurt you, not as long as you're hurting him. . . ."

It was like that now. Afterwards he might be hurt, he might find cuts and bruises on his face, but for now he only felt the pain shooting up his arms when his own blows landed. Soon he had Roger on his back, straddled, and he was pumping both hands at the no-longer-smug face.

Vaguely, he heard Garr shouting encouragement. Even more vaguely, he knew that a crowd had gathered, heard them offering advice first to one contestant, then the other.

"Take it back!" Pete cried, panting.

He didn't wait for an answer. Splat! His right fist struck home again, then his left. Roger tried to grab a handful of his hair and pull him down, but Pete avoided the groping fingers and hammered away with his fists.

"Take it back!"

"I... I take it.. . back .. ."  Roger blubbered.

Shaking with rage, Pete stood up, and all the other cadets milled about and thumped his back and told him it was a fair fight which he had won. They did not understand at all when Garr told them to get out of the room, but one by one they left.

Roger scrambled up off the floor and wiped his face with a handkerchief. "You jumped me when my back was turned," he mumbled, which wasn't true at all. "You jumped me when my back was turned and you kicked me. I'm going to tell my father, and then we'll see what the Chief Marshal thinks of a coward who jumps people from behind just because they try to be sympathetic. You haven't heard the last of this, Hodges."

Laughing, Garr pushed him out of the room and closed the door. Then he sobered. "It's not so funny, Pete. His father has a lot of influence, he could cause a lot of trouble."

Pete shrugged, fingering a bruise on his jaw. "So what? You forget that I'm already kicked out."

"Yeah," Garr said. "Yeah."

Every night the Cadets became more boisterous. They sang the Spaceman's Chant in town, sang it again on the athletic field, roared its chorus around great bonfires under the light of the moon. They sang it on their way to classes each morning as well, but a memo came through from the Marshal's office, telling them that the lowerclassmen couldn't do their work. On the same day—four days after his fight with Roger—Pete received another office-gram from the Marshal.

The gray-haired man was as impersonal as ever, but he did not look friendly. "Cadet Hodges," he began at once, "have you made preparations for your departure?"

"Yes, sir. I have. I leave tomorrow morning, at seven hundred."

"Very well. But until that time, you are to remember this, Cadet Hodges: you are still a Cadet. You will remain a Cadet until you leave the Academy tomorrow, and I want you to behave like one."

"Yes, sir."

"Naturally, you know to what I have reference." "I'm sorry, sir. I do not."

"Four days ago you made an unwarranted attack on Cadet Gorham, striking him from behind and . . ."

"It was not unwarranted, sir. And I did not strike him from behind. If you wish, sir, you may ask any of the Cadets in my dormitory."

The Marshal shook his head. "That would prove nothing. Gorham is unpopular; naturally, they would side with you. The point I am trying to make is this, Cadet Hodges: you merit a medical discharge. I would not like to find myself forced to change that . . ."

"Forced, sir?"

"Cadet Hodges! That is the second time you have interrupted me. The fact that you add a 'sir' to what you say doesn't alter things. Forced by your behavior, I was about to say. Don't misunderstand: we appreciate the gravity of the situation, we can sympathize with you."

"Thank you, sir. But as you say, that doesn't alter..."

"Off the record, Hodges, I knew your father well. Ask him about Brian Mahoney sometime, won't you? Together, Big Pete and I blasted open the path to the Jovian moons. We stood side by side on the bridge of the first ship that cut jets over Callisto. . . ."

Pete nodded eagerly. "He was a great captain, wasn't he, sir?"

"The greatest, son! There was that time in Venus-port, many years ago, it was, when we were a couple of kids fresh out of the Academy . . ."

The Marshal rambled on and on, completely off the record now, and friendly once more. Pete listened avidly; he could listen to tales of space all day long and far into the night. But he sensed a difference. Oh, he wanted to hear about his father and the wonderful things Big Pete had done, for Big Pete himself wasn't prone to talk much. But all the glowing accounts of different places and alien things reminded Pete that he'd never rocket out to them himself. Some day, if he had the money, he might go as a tourist, but it wouldn't be the same thing. He wouldn't like it at all.

Garr was smiling secretively when Pete returned to their room. "Hiya, Little Petel" he said.

"Little Pete? Only my dad, only Big Pete calls me that."

"True," Garr grinned broadly. "Very true—Little Pete."

A big, broad-shouldered man came out from behind the door. He was tall, a head taller than Pete but with the same sensitive features and bright gray eyes. His hair was gray at the temples, but he walked with a firm, youthful stride. "Hello, Pete," he said.

"Dad!"

Garr smiled. "I sent him a wire, Pete. I thought you might like to see him."

"See him?" Pete cried, hardly aware of the words. "What do I want to see him for?" How could he face his father? How could he face Big Pete, who had dreamed of a son who would astrogate the first rocket to Neptune or to Pluto? His older brother, Jerry, had died trying to rescue a miner out in the asteroid belt, and it had been a long time before Big Pete had recovered from the shock. Now this—an earthbound son, and the proud roll call of spacemen would not again know the name Hodges.

"It's been months, son," Big Pete was saying. "I haven't seen you since your last Christmas vacation. Umm-mm, yes, you've grown. You've—"

"Let me alone!" Pete said, turning away, "Garr, Garr—why'd you have to send for him? Don't you see I can't look him in the face? Don't you see?"

And then Big Pete's strong hands were on his shoulders, and for a moment he wanted to find his own strength from them. But he knew how it would be. Big Pete would be sorry for him, and so would his mother. All the neighbors in White Sands would feel the same way. They would drown him with sympathy. It couldn't be that way, ever.

He tore himself loose, ran for the door without looking back. He heard his father pounding through the halls after him, but he ducked into a sink closet and waited until the footsteps faded away. He took an escalator down to ground level and set out for the highway.

One thing was clear. He must never see Garr again, nor Big Pete—nor anything else that would remind him of what could have been. But he had to watch the space-liners. He couldn't live without watching.

Three jet-cars streaked by before an old, obsolete gasoline truck stopped for him. "How far you going?" the driver demanded as Pete climbed into the cab.

"All the way," Pete told him.

The man looked at his tunic. "You a Cadet?"

Wordless, Pete ripped the epaulets from his shoulders, removed the shining buttons from his tunic. He threw them out the window as the truck rolled off down the highway and said, "No. No, I'm not a Cadet. It was just part of a masquerade, Mister."

Chapter 3

Carnival of the Worlds

NCE every ten years, White Sands became more than a sprawling Spaceport city. Millions of dollars were spent and millions of people amused, while White Sands took on a carnival atmosphere. Games and customs and artifacts were gathered from all the habitable worlds of the Solar System. The ultimate development of the mid-twentieth century State Fair could be seen in this, but it was a State Fair a hundred times over.

And now, during Carnival year, Pete's wanderings brought him to White Sands. He got a job collecting tickets at the Exhibition of Interplanetary Flight, and after hours he lost himself completely in the glittering, make-believe worlds of the Carnival. He had left the Academy a month ago, hitch-hiking from town to town until, hardly realizing it, he had covered the thousand miles to White Sands. He never would have done that out of direct choice: White Sands was his home city, someone he knew might discover him. Still, the cheerful, raucous atmosphere of the Carnival

dimmed his painful memories, and Pete was not sorry he had come to the Spaceport city.

After working hours one night he walked along the Midway and took in the sights like any gawking tourist. Here was the pleasure-dome of Phobos—and, in truth, such a dome had been built on the tiny Martian moon; over there were the Venusian Botanical Gardens, featuring the huge, multicolored orchids which had fared so well in the hothouse climate of Venus; and there, quaint tools and pottery of a long-vanished Martian civilization, now gone into decadence.

Anything and everything—and Pete liked it all, for it could make him forget.

Pete first thought he was being followed when he passed the Dome of Asteroid Mineralogy. It was nothing more than a hunch, but the same bright cap bobbed up and down in the crowd behind him. He walked faster, and his heart began to thump wildly. Had someone discovered him? A White Sands neighbor, perhaps? He started running, and people looked at him queerly.

He paused to catch his breath outside the Venusian Aquashow, turning halfway around to look at the crowd. There it was again—the checkered cap!

He ducked through the crowd, breathless now, until he found himself in the shadows behind the Dome of Interplanetary Oddities. Dimly, he could hear the hawker's chanting cry: "Come in! Come in! For only a slim quarter—one slim quarter with nothing more to pay on the inside—you'll see all the Oddities of the six inhabited worlds. Items to tickle your fancy from the four Jovian moons, from Ganymede, Callisto, Io,

Europa—heart-stopping puzzlers from the sands of ancient Mars—exotic items from the steaming water-world of Venus! Gome in, come in—it's only a slim quarter, with nothing more to pay. . . ."

A figure flitted in and out through the shadows. It was too dark to see the checkered cap, but Pete knew the man would be wearing it.

"All right," Pete called through the darkness. "I know you're following me. What do you want?" He hoped his voice didn't sound all choked up, but he was scared.

The voice which answered him was thin and reedy, and almost impossibly nasal. "I wondered when you'd stop and let me have a word with you, sonny! That's all I wanted, a word with you."

Pete nodded, then realized the motion would be lost in darkness. "I'm listening," he said.

The nasal voice laughed. "You'd be Peter Hodges."

Pete felt as if his heart had bobbed up into his throat and was stuck there. How did the man know? How did he know, and more important, who was he? "I'm Pete Wilson," Pete said. That was the name he had used as a ticket collector, the name he had given his landlady at the boarding house.

"Sonny," the nasal voice insisted, "if it wasn't Peter Hodges, I never would have followed you. Like I said, you're Hodges."

"What do you want?" Pete knew he could run away, but the man had seen him once and might be able to find him again.

"I was reading this newspaper," the voice told him, "and I saw your picture. Two, three hours later I spotted you at that ticket window. There's a reward out for you, sonny: your father will pay five hundred bucks to whoever finds you."

Pete backed away, ready to run, but the voice went on:

"Wait a minute! Let me talk, huh? If I wanted that reward, I could have visited your father and told him to look for you at the ticket window. I don't want the money. That was a bad break, sonny, getting kicked out of the Cadets right before graduation."

"How—how did you know?"

"It's in the papers. It's all in the papers. How you hit this guy and then ran away, how they decided to give you a dishonorable discharge instead of a medical one on account of you couldn't stay and face the music. It's all here, sonny."

Pete moved toward the shadowy figure. "Let me see that!"

One of those new permanent matches flared and then flared again, giving a steady glow on its second try. Pete caught a brief glimpse of a craggy, gaunt face, but then he forgot all about it. He was looking at one of the middle pages of a newspaper, the White Sands Herald. The headline wavered in the flickering light, but he could just make it out: WHITE SANDS YOUTH STILL MISSING; EX-CADET AT LARGE FOUR WEEKS.

Pete squinted, could not make out the rest of it in the dim fight; and soon after that his unknown companion snuffed the match.

"Here, sonny," he said. "You can take the paper with you. Read it later, read it any time you want.

Go ahead." And Pete felt the newspaper thrust into his hand.

He folded it, tucked it under his arm, then said, "You still haven't told me what you wanted, Mr.—"

"Call me Gus. Ganymede Gus. Listen, sonny, they gave you a raw deal, and you'd be the last one to say otherwise. Ain't that right?"

"I suppose so."

"Well, okay! How would you like to get back at them?"

"I haven't thought about it one way or the other, but I have nothing against the Cadets."

"Forget it. How would you like to make a lot of money, maybe twice as much as you would have made out in space?"

"I don't know," Pete said. "What would I do with it?"

"Well, keep that in mind. How would you like to spend your time around spacemen who can tell you all about the far worlds?"

Pete answered that one at once. "Oh, I'd like that!"

Ganymede Gus chuckled softly. "Good. You'll find an address on the margin of that newspaper, sonny. I'll be there, any time tomorrow morning. Why don't you read the article—got a nice picture of you, too— get a good night's sleep, then drop in and see old Gus? I'll be waiting, sonny."

And before Pete could answer, the shadowy figure faded away into the night. Pete ran around to the front of the Dome of Interplanetary Oddities, where the Midway lights glared down brilliantly. But Ganymede Gus had disappeared completely.

Back in his small room, Pete spread the newspaper out on his bed and read it thoughtfully. The article went into considerable detail, telling how Big Pete had offered five hundred dollars for information leading to the whereabouts of his son. Pete frowned. Five hundred dollars, that was a lot of money. Big Pete wanted him desperately, Pete knew, and for a moment he wondered. He could go home, it would be so easy. His folks lived in a little White Sands suburb, not five miles away. Still . . .

No! The balance of the newspaper article changed his mind. Roger Gorham had concocted a whole series of lies, all showing how Pete had been disgruntled, unhappy, unfit for Cadet life, and their denial by an obscure Cadet named Garr MacDougal did not convince the authorities. Further, Pete's discharge still hung in the balance—medical or dishonorable.

He had done nothing dishonorable, and resentment welled up within him. It increased when he read about the graduation exercises at the Academy. In a matter of weeks the new Junior Officers would be blasting off for the spacelanes, gay and carefree and devil-may-care in their snappy gray uniforms.

Pete shook his head stubbornly. He could never return home, never return to anything familiar. The sooner he settled on that idea the better off he would be. He noted Ganymede Gus's address scrawled on the margin of page three, tucked it away in his memory and crumpled the paper, throwing it in the disposal chute. But he did not sleep well that night.

In the morning, he ate breakfast in a cafeteria just off the Midway, then walked idly into the Admin is

tration Building. There he checked the list of spaceflights, marveling at the wonderful names of the ships. Mars Queen and Sky Pilot and Starchaser—each with its own particular, far-away kind of beauty. Pete snorted in disgust, told himself he was becoming incurably romantic, and started to leave Administration. But something else caught his eye on the way out, another poster on the far wall, and not knowing why, he found himself drawn to it.

Reaching it, he found half a dozen pictures of men wanted by the police, solidograms, in full color. Curious, he let his eyes rove over them, but suddenly his attention was riveted completely.

One of the solidograms pictured a man of about fifty, with a gaunt face, high cheekbones, deep-set eyes and sparse hair. Gus Fletcher, alias Ganymede Gus, wanted for. . . .

The words swam before his eyes. He found himself running outside, and he didn't know what to do.

Ganymede Gus, the only person who knew Pete's identity and his whereabouts, was wanted by the police!

Bargain with Ganymede Gus

the next few days Pete moved in a haze. Everything I was unreal; everything had a dream quality. He I wandered about aimlessly in the mornings or ' dropped into the library to do some reading. Afternoons and evenings he spent at his window, collecting tickets. The faces were white blobs, he never saw any of them clearly. After work he would wander some more, only half-aware of where he went or why. It could not go on this way, and he knew it. Something would happen, something had to happen. Meanwhile he lived in a world where nothing mattered but the tickets he collected and the food he ate.

Once he thought he'd been seen by a White Sands neighbor, and he lost himself in the Midway crowd. It could have been his imagination, it probably was, but such a discovery was bound to come sooner or later. Unless he ran, and kept on running . . .

That same night he returned to his boarding house early, fed up with the sights along the Midway. It was all so phony—Mars this and Venus that and all the tourists came gawking. Pete wanted the real thing and

could not get it, and the cheap carnival imitation only made him feel worse.

He pushed open the door to his room, slammed it shut. He flicked on the light panels, turned around.

"Hello, sonny."

"Ganymede Gus! How did you get here?"

"You didn't keep your appointment with me, sonny. I waited. But you didn't come." Gus snickered.

Pete found something unwholesome about the man. The reedy sound his voice made, his slumped shoulders, the dissipated look on his face. But somehow his eyes did not fit. They were old eyes and tired eyes, but they seemed more at peace with the world than the rest of Ganymede Gus. "If you don't get out of here," Pete cried, "I'll call the police."

"Is that so?" The threat did not seem to bother Gus at all. "What for? What will you tell them? I just came on a friendly little visit, sonny."

"I saw the solidograms in the Administration Build-

Ganymede Gus shrugged his thin shoulders. "So what? You know I'm wanted. That doesn't mean you're going to turn me in. Don't jump before you think, sonny. It never pays off. You're wanted, too."

"The police don't want—"

"Who said anything about the police? Your father wants you, doesn't he? Would you like to go home?" Pete shook his head.

"Okay. Then you're not telling anyone I'm here, understand? It was easy to find you. I got your address from where you work; I told the landlady here I was your uncle."

Pete didn't sit down. "Just tell me what you want; then you get out of here. All right, I won't call the police. But I can throw you out. Now talk!"

"Calm down, sonny. I just want to make a deal with you—wait, let me finish. We're almost in the same boat, anyway. You want to go to space because you've always dreamed of what it would be like. I've been to space, and I . . ."

In spite of himself, Pete was interested. "You've been to space?"

"That's what I said. Years ago, after the first couple of expeditions to the Jovian moons. That's where I get my name. The Academy was a pretty new thing then, and if you had the guts you could go to space anyway. But they changed all that, you had to be an Academy graduate, and—bah! Just because you wear a uniform an' they taught you how to salute, that doesn't mean you belong in space."

"No," Pete admitted, "it doesn't. But there's a lot of intensive training."

"So what? The best training I ever knew was what you can get from experience. Anyway, that doesn't matter. I said I have a proposition."

"I'm listening," Pete said, "but that doesn't mean 111 agree to it."

"I work for a guy. You can work for him too. You'll be working with men who go to space . .

"Academy graduates?" Pete did not believe him, and said so.

"No! Who said other people don't go to space, don't put together their own ships with spit and string and fly 'em despite injunctions? You got a lot to learn, sonny. Anyway, point is, you can be of help to our organization. We need an inside man, and you can get a job in the Spaceport. . ." "Doing what?"

Ganymede Gus shrugged eloquently. "Were leaving that to you, sonny. You know your way around. We'll need information on take-offs and schedules and things like that. No, don't ask me what for. You just do your job, we'll do ours."

"Such as what?"

"Let me finish, sonny!"

Pete paced back and forth, then said, "You're wasting your time, because the answer is no. Now, get out." "Temper, sonny. Temper—"

But Pete had had enough. He pulled Ganymede Gus to his feet and drew his face close. The ex-spaceman struggled, but Pete was lithe and strong, and shook him.

"That's all!" he shouted angrily. "I don't want any part of it. You can take your crooked schemes and— Get out! That's all, just get out."

He propelled Ganymede Gus to the door, opened it, pushed the man through. "Maybe I've sunk low," Pete muttered. "But not that low. Next time I see you, Mister, I'm going to start swinging!"

Gus retreated and hustled down the stairs. Pete heard him laughing as he left, and all night he couldn't get that laughter out of his ears.

They wanted an "inside" man, Gus had said, someone to keep track of the blast-offs from White Sands. That way, it would be easy for them, incredibly easy. Their own ship, armed to the teeth, would wait somewhere beyond the orbit of the moon, intercepting the commercial liners out in deep space and looting their cargoes while the crew watched helplessly.

On Earth during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, piracy had faded away until it virtually disappeared. The sea-lanes became heavy with traffic and all pirates could do was cling grimly in the remote regions of the planet, pouncing out briefly and plundering recklessly before they were caught. But space was different. Space was new, unknown—and vast. You might send the entire space-navy out after one battered pirate cruiser and never find it in the bleak, shoreless gulf between the planets.

And thus it was that the pirates prospered. They did not call themselves pirates any longer and they did not use the "Jolly Roger." Even the term "hijacker" was obsolete, for piracy had become a refined profession. One ship plundered; another had a far rendezvous with it, took the cargo, altered it, and sold it on the frontier planets under the name of a legitimate trading organization. All very thorough—and deadly.

Savagely, Pete shook the thoughts from his mind. They might or they might not be pirates—he could be jumping to conclusions. But the safest course he could follow would be to keep away from Ganymede Gus.

In the days that followed, he found that all but impossible. Gus leered at him in his ticket window; Gus met him on the Midway; Gus was there in the cafeteria when he ate his meals.

"Hello, Pete!" and "You're looking fine this morning, Pete," and "Are you ready to do business yet, Pete?" Gus was everywhere.

More than once, it crossed Pete's mind that he should report the man to the police. But Gus had warned him: Pete's family would learn of his whereabouts if that happened, and Pete would have to face them with all his lost dreams.

A week after their meeting in Pete's room, Gus sat down at his cafeteria table, getting down to cases at once. "I've had enough of your horsing around, son," he said. "You'll get that job —and you'll get it soon."

"I told you you're wasting your time," Pete declared, trying to keep his voice down.

"Think so? I don't. Sonny, when you get to know me you'll realize that's one thing I never do, waste my time. Remember I said you won't report me, because I'd tell your father if you did?"

"I remember."

"Okay. If you don't get that job, if you don't play ball, I'll also tell him. It's no skin off my teeth, sonny. One reason's as good as another. Now, do you play ball?"

"No!"

Ganymede Gus shrugged. "Your family lives on Wac Corporal Avenue, Number 2730. I'll go there this afternoon, and . , ."

"Stop! Stop it! But I can't help a bunch of pirates."

Ganymede Gus shook his head in mock horror. "Pirates? The words you use, sonny. Who said anything about pirates?"

"What else could you be if you want information like that, except pirates?"

Gus lit a cigarette, blew smoke at the ceiling. "I represent a group of businessmen on the outworlds.

We want to know when ships are blasting off so we can be first at the trading ports to receive them. That way, we'll get goods at the lowest prices. There ain't anything illegal about that, is there?"

"N-no," Pete admitted doubtfully. "That isn't illegal. But how do I know I can trust you?"

"You don't, sonny. But you do know this: don't play ball, and I talk. Right now, today. Well?"

Pete could picture his mother hovering over him sympathetically, watching the hurt look in his eyes. He could see Big Pete telling him—but not meaning it at all—that there were other things in life besides space travel. He would balk at every move. . . .

"All right, Gus," he said slowly. "I'll get that job. I'll do it for you. But if I find out it's piracy, I'll go to the police so fast—"

Ganymede Gus shook hands with him. "Don't you worry your head about it, sonny. From now on you're working for the best little trading organization in the Solar System."

Pete nodded vaguely. Traders—or pirates?

Chapter 5 hi the Spaceport

r IVE-FIFTEEN-FIFTEEN, Wilson!"

He must get used to his name—Wilson, that was

his name. "Ready!"

"Fifteen-twenty!" Five hours, fifteen minutes, twenty seconds. In another thirty seconds, sunrise. Or blast-off! For it was the same thing when you calculated orbits for an outbound ship. At sunrise a spaceship would add its own speed to Earth's orbital velocity of eighteen and a half miles per second. In other words, the ship, going too fast to be maintained in Earth's orbit by the sun, would drift out in space toward Mars, or the asteroids, or the Jovian moons. After that, it was up to the ship's astro-gator.

Blasting off for Venus, or for the outer planets when they were not in opposition, a ship followed the setting sun. Then it would subtract its own speed from Earth's orbital velocity, and, moving too slowly to be held in place by the Earth's gravity, it would drift in toward Venus or toward the sun and then beyond it.

"Fifteen-fifty, Wilson!"

Pete nodded, pressed his thumb down on the firing button. He heard an ear-shattering roar, ran quickly to the tower window to look outside. The Mars-bound freighter was rising slowly, majestically, on a growing pillar of flame. In seven seconds he had to crane his neck upward to see it, and soon all his eyes could follow was the streak of fire. An instant later, the ship disappeared.

"You really like to watch those ships go, don't you, Wilson?"

"Yes sir, Captain Saunders."

Smiling, the captain shook his head. "I can't understand it, but then, I'm not complaining. Lord knows we need men like you here."

"What can't you understand, sir?" Pete had a pretty good idea what the man meant, but he asked his question anyway.

"Your knowledge of astrogation, Wilson. As if you've spent all your life on theory, and half of it on practice . . ."

Pete smiled. "It's sort of been a hobby of mine, sir."

"I'll say! And the way you can map orbits in your head, without doing any paper work! Incredible."

"Yes. At the Aca— uh, sometime ago, I was told that was unusual. Maybe it's intuition and split-second reasoning instead of the accepted procedure. There are maybe a handful of men all over the planet who can do that, but . . ."

"I've heard of them," Captain Saunders grinned. "But I've never been lucky enough to work with one, until you came along. Tell me, Wilson, do guys like you have to use radar?"

"Sure. Of course we use radar. Only we can interpret it directly in our heads. That saves a lot of time . .

"And," Captain Saunders nodded enthusiastically, "it could also save lives. Wilson, when split-second decisions have to be made, I'd like to see you around to make them."

By demonstrating that special ability, Pete had been hired quite readily at the Spaceport. White Sands always needed orbit men, for most of the good ones would become astrogators and leave for space. The result was that the Spaceports had to settle for overage astrogators who had lost some of their quick reflexes with the waning years. Yet paradoxically, the orbiteers were as important as the star-pilots themselves, for they had to plan the orbits, had to change them on a moment's notice and then perhaps change them again, had to do the actual blasting-off. Yes, even that—and it never ceased to amaze Pete. Only the smallest ships blasted off on their own accord. All the larger ones began their great elliptical flights almost like guided missiles, fired into space by the orbiteers sitting in their tower.

". . . so," Captain Saunders was saying, "it indicates one of two things. Either you spent twenty years as an astrogator, which is impossible, or else you had some terrific training, like what they give at the Academy."

Pete's face turned white. He must never let them suspect anything about the Academy! Otherwise everything might be uncovered, and Big Pete would come running. "No," Pete laughed nervously, "nothing like that. As I've told you, sir, it was a hobby of mine. But that's all."

"A hobby, eh?" Saunders' eyebrows arched quizzically. Then he shrugged, smiling broadly. "Well, I'm not going to look a gift horse in the mouth, Wilson. I don't care if you tell me you were born that way!"

"If you'll excuse me, sir, I think I'll get something to eat."

"Go right ahead. Oh, and about this afternoon. We'll be firing the Tropic of Capricorn II at Venus, sunset time. Better start plotting an orbit after lunch—no, never mind! I can't get used to you, Wilson! Probably, you'll figure out the entire orbit ten minutes before the sun sets, and you'll get it right, too."

"What's on the docket, sonny?"

"Huh? Oh, Gus." Pete had known this meeting would have to occur sooner or later, but a few days in the wonderful complexity of the Spaceport tower had driven all such thoughts from his mind. Now, strolling around the port after breakfast, he encountered the gnarled ex-spaceman.

"I said, what's on the docket? Specifically, sonny, we know the Tropic of Capricorn II will be leaving for Venus soon. We don't know when, and we don't know the orbit. That's your department."

"That ship's loaded with currency for the Venusport treasury!" Pete cried. "I thought you said you had nothing to do with piracy."

"Sure, sure. Don't go jumping to conclusions. It also has farming machinery, and my associates want to be at Venusport first, to buy it at rock-bottom prices. Now, what's the orbit, sonny?" And, when Pete said nothing: "Remember, I know your father's address—"

"All right," Pete answered numbly, "you don't have to threaten me. I made a bargain with you." "That's better. Now, talk."

"Sunset tonight. The orbit will touch the Venusian ellipse without crossing it. It's a little longer, but we save fuel that way. Distance of trip, forty-eight million miles. I guess you can figure the time of arrival from that."

"Sure can!" Gus slapped Pete's back happily, then ambled off down the roadway. He called back over his shoulder, "See you soon, sonny."

Late that afternoon, Pete entered Captain Saunders' office. The officer looked up from his desk, nodded a curt acknowledgment to Pete's salute, then laughed. "You sure take yourself seriously, Wilson! You even salute like a product of the Academy. Anyway, have you got that Capricorn orbit ready?"

"Yes, sir."

"Good. Let's have it."

"Well, I figure we might let the orbit cross the Venusian ellipse. That'll shave seven or eight million miles off the trip, and . . ."

Saunders frowned. "Generally, we like to touch orbits instead of crossing 'em."

"I know," Pete agreed hastily. "Generally, I like to do that, too." He'd had a change of heart at the last minute, deciding to alter the orbit and send Ganymede Gus' associates, whoever they were, off in the wrong direction. He licked his lips nervously, clenched and unclenched his fists. That might cause more trouble than he could handle, but there were five million dollars in negotiable currency aboard the Tropic of Capricorn II.

"Well," Saunders said at last, "that's your department. You're my orbiteer, Wilson. And these last few days sure indicate you're a good one. If you say so, the Capricorn will cross Venus. . . ."

Pete felt a lot better about things after blast-off on the new orbit. He had a hunch it wouldn't last, for Ganymede Gus would eventually find out, but meanwhile Pete had some time to think. He could not live only from day to day, doing anything Ganymede Gus demanded of him in the hope that Big Pete wouldn't find out about him. For if Gus did fly the modern version of the Jolly Roger, Pete knew he would be an accomplice. And that would be worse for Big Pete. One son killed in space, another washed out of the Academy and turned criminal.

Several days later, Gus met him on the roadways leading to die blasting pits. Gus wasn't laughing. "I been looking for you, sonny," he said.

"I've changed my mind. I haven't been looking for you. No more, Gus—we're through, understand?"

"Through?" Ganymede Gus mocked indignation. "Through? Why, we haven't even started. You want to hear something peculiar, sonny? No? Well, I'll tell you anyway. Remember the Tropic of Capricorn?"

Pete nodded, said he remembered.

"It didn't fly on the orbit you predicted. Now, ain't that funny. Some friends of mine wasted their time looking for a ship that wasn't there. You can't blame them for being sore, can you?"

"I don't care one way or the other."

"I do. I got a reputation to maintain, sonny. You lied to me. You shouldn't have lied."

"Nothing you say will do any good," Pete told him. "I'm quitting. If you keep on bothering me, I'll report you to the police. And that's a promise."

"Sonny! Is that any way to act?" Ganymede Gus came closer, hands buried deep in the pockets of his jumper. He moved in close enough to touch Pete, and then something hard was prodding Pete's stomach.

Ganymede Gus whispered, "That's a blaster you feel. I press the little button, and it kills you. Just walk ahead of me—there, that's right. Now you feel it in your back. It'll stay there, so don't try any tricks."

As he walked, Pete could feel the hard round bore of the blaster against the small of his back. He did not look behind him once, but after they left the Spaceport and reached the crowded streets of White Sands, Ganymede Gus began a meaningless, animated conversation, and the crowds of passers-by did not give them a second glance.

It was a hot summer night, still early, but darkness had covered the Carnival area by the time they reached it. Pete was drenched with sweat.

They entered a small sideshow several blocks off the Midway, walked quickly past the phony freaks on exhibit, then climbed a dingy flight of stairs.

In the darkness, Gus knocked on a door, three taps in quick succession, then a fourth after an interval of perhaps two seconds. A muffled voice told them to come in.

The door swung open, and the harsh light within the room momentarily blinded Pete. When he could

see, a huge figure of a man was looking at him, a six-foot giant with beady little eyes, a much battered nose and a very grim expression on his face.

Gus said cheerfully, "Sonny, I want you to meet Sam Smith. Sam is one of our strong-arm boys. When any of our associates balk, he keeps them in line. Sam, this is Pete Hodges; you know all about him."

Sam Smith nodded his huge head, offered a big hand to Pete. Doubtfully, Pete shook it. Without warning, the hulking figure pulled him forward. Pete stumbled, cried out, saw the left fist coming at him from some place behind the man's belt buckle. He tried to duck under it, but the fist exploded against his jaw, tumbling him over flat on his back.

Chapter 6r

eunion

S

HAKING his head sadly, Ganymede Gus helped Pete to his feet. "You can't blame Sam," he said. "Sam was mighty disappointed when the Capricorn didn't turn up. Weren't you, Sam?" Sam nodded, grunted something which Pete could not quite hear. There was a ringing in his ears and his jaw felt numb. He broke loose from Gus's grip and ran for the door. Pie got one hand on it and threw it open, lunging out into the hallway. He didn't make it.

Something big and muscular circled his neck, and he knew it was Sam's arm. He was spun around savagely, and he heard the door close again. He scrambled loose, hammered with his fists at Sam's face. The big man looked surprised. He blinked his eyes rapidly, took a step backward and shook his head. But the blows had done no harm!

"Sam used to be a heavyweight fighter," Ganymede Gus explained. "You need a club to hurt him, sonny."

This couldn't be happening, Pete thought wildly. Not here in this modern age. Only it was, and what was the expression? They had him good.

43

Sam hit him again, harder. He crashed back against the wall, slumped down to the floor. He got up slowly, felt the warm, salty taste of blood in his mouth. He plodded grimly forward, trying to raise his arms and swing them.

Ganymede Gus sounded genuinely sorry this time.

"Quit, sonny! Don't come back for more. Why don't

you just lay down and quit? The boss wanted us to

teach you a lesson, but you don't have to stand and

take it----- "

Sam hit him again—and again. He did not feel the blows—a numbness had taken their place. But he remembered falling down and then climbing wearily to his feet. Falling down and getting up....

He lay on his back and someone was applying a cold, wet towel to his face. He moaned and tried to sit up, but a hand pushed him down again. "Just rest, sonny. Sam is all through, and you'll have time enough to get up later. Sonny, I got to hand it to you. A lot of spacemen I knew wouldn't have taken it like that. I think even Sam would hate to fight with you five years from now—when you're all grown up." Then Ganymede Gus sounded like he was pleading. "I like you, Pete. Yeah, I got room for things like that. I like you. I don't want to see you hurt, but the boss said . . ."

"Get to the point!" Sam growled from some place off across the room.

"You've got to play ball, sonny. Don't you see? First place, Sam here will try to twist your arm any time you balk. Also, we'll tell your father ..."

"Go ahead!" Pete cried through swollen lips. "Go ahead, tell him. I'm all finished with that. You can tell him anything you want."

"Oh, yeah?" This was Sam. "Did you like what I done to you? Remember this, wise guy: I can do the same thing to that family of yours, only I can make it worse. Better play ball!"

Ganymede Gus nodded. "He isn't fooling, Pete. He doesn't know how. If he starts to work on your folks..

Pete sat up groggily. He was going to ignore the threat. Heck, his family could take care of itself, especially if he warned them. Also, there were police for things like this. But he looked at Sam's face, at the utter lack of expression on it, and he said:

"All right, Gus. All right, I'm your man. Now can I go?"

Gus nodded, almost happily, but Sam held Pete down with a big hand. "Just a minute. You can go, yeah—but remember, this was only a warning. Next time we move in on the family, and Gus here will also do some blabbing."

A wave of dizziness swept over him, but somehow Pete made it to the door. "Don't you forget it," Sam called after him. "Gus will be after you for information every now and then. You better give it to him, see?"

Pete said he saw, and left.

He felt shot, felt as if he wanted to sleep for a week, but he was at the tower before sunrise. Captain Saunders did a double take when he entered.

"Your face!" he shouted. "What happened to you?"

Pete's lips were still swollen, and one of his eyes

was blackened and tightly shut. He smiled ruefully. "I—I got into a fight last night."

"I'll say! It doesn't look as if you won."

"No, I didn't," Pete admitted. "I—I'd rather forget about it, sir."

"There you go again," said Saunders. "If that isn't Academy training, I'll eat my hat. Every other kid I know would talk about his fight and say something like 'you should see the other guy.' But not you. You make no excuses, and you want to forget all about it. That's exactly what they'd drum into you at the Academy."

Pete changed the subject quickly. "Are there any blast-offs today?"

"No. No, I thought I'd told you. No clearance for a couple of days. After that, though, they'll be going out fast and furiously! The new Academy graduates will be arriving, and they'll be taking off for all the training posts around the Solar System. Three shiploads for Mars, three for Venus, two for Ceres out in the asteroids, half a dozen for the Jovian moons.

"You'll have plenty to do, Wilson. I think you'll get a kick out of those Academy boys, too. I always do. They're so eager and so full of fire and—well, there's just nothing like them. They own all space, and they know it. The planets are theirs today, and tomorrow, maybe the stars. They turn this place into a mess every time they come, but the officers love it. I wish I were a young man again, Wilson, I'd—say, why didn't you ever try to enter the Academy?"

"Physically unfit," Pete mumbled, stalking tight-lipped from the room. After he had gone, Captain

Saunders stood for a long while staring at the closed door. Then he sat down at his desk and asked for long distance on his video-phone. "I want the Cadet Academy in Des Moines," he said.

In twos and threes the graduate Cadets began to trickle into White Sands. Pete realized he would have to be careful; naturally, he was known by every graduate of the Academy. But at times he found himself fighting a wild impulse to shout his greetings to his former companions, to join in their raucous singing, to slap them soundly on their backs and wish them luck.

That was impossible, and he knew it. He'd be letting the cat out of the bag entirely if even one Cadet recognized him. But the familiar lump had come to his throat, for when they sang ho! for the void and far away this time, they meant it. All their lives they had been looking forward to it, and now they were skyward bound. . . .

The Cadets were everywhere—out on the field, weaving in and out among the blasting pits, filling the cafeterias with their boisterous, happy laughter, wearing their shiny new uniforms in every nook and cranny of White Sands. Some of them even invaded the tower from time to time, carrying with them a youthful haughtiness which was not meant to be snobbish.

At such times, Pete huddled off in a corner, his back turned, tinkering meaninglessly with the dials and levers which kept the Spaceport going. More than once, curious Cadets asked him questions. With his face still averted, he would answer them in monosyllables, putting on a "heck-fellows-I'm-busy" attitude.

His heart never stopped its nervous thumping until long after they were gone.

One day Captain Saunders had a word with him about that. "Pete," he said, "there's been a complaint registered against you."

"A complaint? My work is satisfactory, isn't it?"

"I don't mean that." Captain Saunders shook his head. "The Cadets feel that you resent them for some reason. Oh, they make jokes about it, but they keep asking about the ornery guy who works in the tower and brushes off all their questions. Why, Pete?"

Resent them? Anything but that! All Pete wanted to do was keep his identity unknown, but to the Cadets it indicated resentment. There wasn't much he could do about it, either. "I—I don't know, sir. I'm busy, and . . ."

"Busy! You? When you can plot an orbit in ten minutes, inside that rapid-fire head of yours! No, that's not it, Pete, but if they have a legitimate gripe, I'd like to know what it is."

"Maybe they do have one, sir, but I can't answer it. I-"

"It's something in your past, isn't it, Pete? Wait, don't answer. You know, I could know more about this than you think. I could know a great deal more about it than you think."

"I'd rather not discuss it, sir," Pete said, and left the room in a hurry.

After that, the Cadet ships began to blast off. Each day at sunrise and sunset Pete would watch them go. The Cadets filing out to their waiting ships, trailing a thunderous chorus of the Spaceman's Chant, the offleers calling roll near the blasting pits, speech making by some local political figures—and then the tense moments in the tower while Pete sent each ship flashing off into the void on its carefully calculated orbit.

And each day, additional Cadets came into White Sands to start the whole thing all over again. It might be many weeks before all of them had been cleared off into space.

This caused a lot of commotion, and it kept Pete busy, so busy that for a time he almost forgot about Ganymede Gus. But one night he found a letter waiting in his room. He read:

Sonny: No need for us to meet from now on. That might be dangerous. When I want some information, you just mail it to Sam Smith (you remember Sam, don't you?) care of General Delivery in White Sands. It looks to me like the Crape Ring should be blasting off for Mars within the week. Suppose you tell me when, and on what orbit. And no tricks this time—that's friendly advice, sonny, because I have a little story to tell your father otherwise, and Sam might even decide to give him something like what you got, only worse.

Regards, Ganymede Gus.

Pete crumpled the note, thrust it in his pocket. Yes, the Crape Ring was set for blast-off the day after tomorrow, at sunrise. But it carried a fortune in precious stones, to be exhibited at the Syrtis Major City Museum. If he gave Gus the requested information, and if Gus were connected with pirates, Pete would be as guilty as anyone in the crew that had actually committed the act of piracy. Yet if he didn't give that

50

Earth bound*

information, his whereabouts would be revealed—and worse. That much he already had resigned himself to: It was an eventuality, something which had to happen. In that case, he could go to the police and . . .

No! Sam Smith might carry out his threat, attacking Big Pete, injuring him, or more.

From far-off, a clock at the Carnival struck three when Pete sat down and wrote his note to Ganymede Gus. Every scratch of the pen was painful, but he got it all down. The precise moment of sunrise, the speed of the Crape Ring, the orbit he would plot for it. Pete went outside and posted the letter, and after that he did not bother to return to his room. He walked the streets of White Sands until dawn, realizing once that his steps carried him perilously close to his old neighborhood. Yes, there was the elementary school which he had attended, there the athletic field where he and his brother Jerry used to play, ages ago it seemed, and there was the library where he used to sit breathlessly and read about the exploits of his father and the other great spacemen who had carved out their destiny on the far planets.

He watched his shadow stalk out ahead of him and then disappear as he walked from street light to street light. He walked on across town to the Spaceport and then out among the silent, waiting ships. The wind whistled in briskly from the west, moaning against tire hulls and shrieking in the exposed lateral tubes of some of the ships, and the wind felt good against Pete's face.

He had wanted to be a spaceman, and almost, he had made it. But in the end he had been rejected, and he found himself on an entirely different path now. Where might it end?

Pete could not tell, but he knew this: he would rather die than bring shame to the name which his father had burned in the bleak depths of space.

There were no blast-offs scheduled for sunrise the following morning, and Pete did not report to the tower until just before noon. By that time he was sleepy, but something about the bright, polished interior of the tower reminded him of a spaceship, and he felt his spirits lifting as he entered it.

"You look as if you haven't slept in a week," Captain Saunders told him.

Pete laughed. "Well, not quite a week, but I didn't get much sleep last night."

Saunders was smiling. "You see that door over there?"

"Of course I see it, sir." It was the door which led from the observation room into Captain Saunders' private office.

"Well, I want you to go through it. Right now."

Pete nodded, scratching his head. What kind of order was that?

He opened the door, entered the little office.

Two men stood inside, one young—tall and gangling, his freckled face split in a broad grin. The other middle-aged, trying to look stern but grinning too.

Pete uttered an eager cry and ran forward.

Garr MacDougal and Big Pete came across the floor to meet him!

Ct / See-Garr Goes to Space

I

ou SEE," Captain Saunders said later, "I knew something wasn't quite right about Pete from the start. I didn't know what, but I had a hunch I might find the Academy tied in there some place, especially when Pete tried to change the subject. I called the Academy, spoke to a Brian Mahoney. You know the rest."

Big Pete nodded. "I also know Mahoney. We were great friends, in the old days. But that isn't important. Pete, will you answer a question frankly? Good! Are you glad we found you?"

Pete nodded. "I—I think so. Funny, but I pictured all sorts of trouble, you know, like a tear jerker of a reunion, with you telling me to take it like a man, with Garr cracking silly jokes."

"I resent that!" Garr shouted. "None of my jokes are silly."

"Sorry," Pete laughed. "With Garr cracking serious jokes."

"Serious? That's worse!"

"Anyway," Pete continued, "you get what I mean.

That's what I expected, and I wanted to avoid it, at any cost. But when it finally happened, it wasn't like that at all. I don't understand."

Big Pete touched flame to his pipe, puffed contentedly. "Don't you see the mistake you made? All your life you'd dreamed of taking our name back into space, and when you learned that you couldn't, you figured I'd feel as bad about it as you do. Well, I do feel bad—but it isn't the end of the world for me, Pete, and it shouldn't be that for you, either."

"It's not. It's a lousy break, but . . ."

"But you'll get over it, is that what you're trying to say? Good! And listen, Pete, let me tell you something. You know, in a way it was even worse for us old spacehands. That twenty-five-year-old maximum hasn't been around forever. It hit me when I was twenty-seven, just two years overage. The noise spread all over the Solar System when that bill was passed. Most of the spacemen at that time were suddenly declared too old, and with no more than sixty days' notice, we were ordered off our commands.

"How do you think we liked it? Maybe objectively we knew it made sense. But that didn't matter. We had opened the spacelanes, we knew everything there was to be known about spaceflight, and we found ourselves kicked out still in the prime of life, a bunch of kids still wet behind the ears taking our places. If you know your history, you'll remember that caused a heap of trouble for a time. Veterans were marching on the various capitals, demanding the law be revoked. But it quieted down, and soon it was forgotten. All the old spacemen who wanted them got good ground jobs, good, that is, because they could still help spaceflight from the ground floor.

"And that's where you come in, Pete. You can do the same thing. Sure, I'm disappointed that the name of Hodges won't ride the rockets again, not this generation, anyway. But space travel is young and raw and it needs a lot of help, from all directions. You can do your part on the ground. You're moving in the right direction with this tower job, and Captain Saunders tells me you've been doing some remarkable work, too."

"He sure has," Saunders agreed.

But Garr shook his head. "You're missing the point, Mr. Hodges. Sure, I think Pete agrees with you about what he's got to do from now on, but . . ."

"That's it," Pete nodded. "But I don't think a harmless old injury should keep me out of space."

Big Pete smiled. "There was a time I didn't think two extra years should keep me out of space, and I already was a rocket-captain, Pete. Remember that."

"This is different. They haven't given me a chance!" Pete pounded his fist against his collarbone savagely. "See? See, it doesn't hurt. It's healed. Only they won't give it a chance!"

"Hey!" Garr cried. "Calm down. I didn't mean to start anything."

"That's all right. I just get this way once in a while, but I think I understand. If I have to do my work on the ground instead of in the sky, that's the way it will be."

Big Pete said, "Then only one thing remains. You'll have to come and live with us, with your mother and me. She's missed you, Little Pete—umm-mm, not so little any more!"

But Garr frowned. "No, Mr. Hodges. You're wrong. Something else remains, too. You know whom I drew for a space companion? Old Roger Gorham, that's who."

"Oh, no!" Pete moaned.

"Yeah, he's my new partner. It was supposed to be you and me, Pete, but then you washed out. No one wanted to ship off with Roger, so he and I were two extra men. They put us together, but that's beside the point. Point is, Roger caused a lot of trouble, told a lot of lies—and they're ready to give you a dishonorable discharge. His father totes a lot of power, you know."

"Is that so?" Big Pete bristled. "Listen, son, I do too. Although I don't like to use it . . ."

"That's just it," Pete insisted. "I don't want you to use it. I'll straighten this thing out myself. I don't know how, but I'll straighten it out."

"I didn't know about any of that," Captain Saunders told them. "But the work you're doing here will be in your favor. I'll have some mighty nice things to say about you, Pete, because you deserve them. Which reminds me, I hate to cut this short, but I have a load of work to do. You can take today off and get acquainted with your folks all over again, Pete. I'll see you tomorrow morning, when we push the Crape Ring off into space. Say, why don't you come around too, Mr. Hodges, and see how things are done here in the tower?"

Big Pete nodded eagerly. "I'd like that."

But suddenly Pete had turned white. "Jumping Jets!" he cried. "The Crape Ringl"

Captain Saunders looked up sharply. "What's the matter?"

"N-nothing. Only, only I'd like to change its orbit, that's all."

"What in space for? I told you to plot out the quickest possible orbit. Is that what you did?" "Yes, sir."

"Then we won't change it. They want that ship on Mars as soon as possible, and . . ."

"But," Pete persisted, "I've plotted the Ring to cross Mars' orbit. That's faster, sure—but it wastes a lot of fuel."

Captain Saunders frowned. "Don't you think I know that? They want speed this time. Speed! Fuel doesn't matter, not when they're in a hurry. The orbit stays the same, Pete."

"The same," Pete echoed numbly. But Ganymede Gus had the information by now, and Pete would be sending the Crape Ring to a rendezvous with a pirate ship!

Pete tried to enjoy himself with Garr that afternoon. He took his friend to the Carnival and showed him the sights, gawking with him at the exhibits from the far worlds. Garr was very excited; over and over again he would say, "I'll be out there soon! Me, Garr Mac-Dougal!" And then he would shake his head. "I'm sorry, Petey-boy. Maybe I shouldn't talk like that, huh? I mean, with you—"

But Pete hardly listened. What did it matter if he never went to space? They didn't send criminals out to space, anyway, and he'd be as guilty as Gus or Sam Smith or anyone else after tomorrow.

In the evening, a family reunion had been prepared at the Hodges' house. Pete's mother, a lovely woman entering middle age, had invited the Hodges clan from all over the city, and that meant more cousins and uncles and aunts than Pete could count. Garr was there too, and although the dinner had been planned as a welcome home for Pete, the younger folk clustered around the tall, red-headed youth who was soon to blast off for space. Their questions blended into a continuous babble of excitement.

"Have you ever been out before?"

"Where do you want to go? Mars? Venus? The asteroids?"

"Is it true that spacemen have to be stronger than other people?"

"What do you remember most about the Academy?"

"Do you think we'll ever go beyond the Solar System and reach for the stars, Mr. MacDougal?"

"What's your job out in space?"

"You won't miss Earth at all, will you—you lucky guy!"

Once Garr confided to Pete, "I didn't know that would happen! Just because I wear this uniform they only want to talk to me. Not much of a welcome home for you, is it, Pete?"

"What's the difference? In a way I'm glad. I still don't feel much like talking, anyway. You keep it up, Garr: the more they ignore me tonight, the better I'll like it."

"Really?"

"Really. As a matter of fact, if I can sneak off and go to bed, I'd like that." "Say, don't you feel well?"

"I—I've got a headache. Nothing serious, but—listen, Garr! Make excuses for me, will you?"

Without waiting for an answer, Pete ducked through the crowd in his folks' living room, climbed the stairs to the second floor two at a time. He went into his own unfamiliar bedroom—he'd hardly slept there, except for vacations, in almost four years—closed the door behind him and crossed to the window,

It was as he had remembered it. Several feet below the sill was the sloping porch roof. Cautiously, Pete clambered up over the sill. He had to be quiet, but he was also in a hurry, and he thought that the noise of the party downstairs would muffle any sounds he made.

He crept across the slanting roof, came to its edge. Without pausing, he swung his feet over and hung for a moment by his hands. That was the dangerous time; briefly, he'd be silhouetted against the moon, and if anyone happened to be looking—

No one was, and Pete fell to all fours when he hit the ground. Good! As far as anyone knew, he was still within the house. Now all he had to do was find Ganymede Gus and Sam Smith, out of a city of several hundred thousand people.

He did not know what would come next, if he found them. But it was a straw to grasp at.

He checked every bar and grill, every shady joint in the Carnival area. He haunted the sideshows and the legitimate exhibits until closing time. He stalked grimly up and down the length of the Midway—all to no avail.

Wearily, he turned around and headed for home. He was thoroughly exhausted. He hadn't slept at all the night before, and now it was half-past two in the morning. And that left a scant three hours of sleep before he'd have to report to the tower and send the Crape Ring out to probable disaster.

He opened the door with his key, closed it behind him, padded softly across the darkened hall. He smelled the pipe tobacco before he saw Big Pete.

His father was there, sitting in a big overstuffed chair, and when Pete came close he snapped on the fluorescents and tamped his pipe out in a big ash tray.

"What is it, son?"

"Nothing. Nothing's the matter, Pop." "Pete! You can't fool me, so don't try. I'm an old hand at intrigue. Now, what's bothering you?" "I said it was nothing!"

"Shh! You'll wake your mother. You don't leave a party and stay out till three o'clock if it's nothing."

"All right," Pete admitted. "It's something. But I can't tell you what. Maybe some day, after I can fix it-"

"Bad?"

Pete nodded glumly. "Pretty bad. But trust me, Pop —no matter what happens, no matter what things may look like—"

Big Pete cleared his throat loudly. "Go on to bed now! Of course I'll trust you! Only you'll have to be at that tower of yours before sunrise, so you'd better get some sleep."

Pete called thanks over his shoulder and took the stairs to his bedroom two at a time.

Captain Saunders said, "As you know, your father wanted to watch how we do things here at the tower. I hope it won't make you nervous."

Big Pete smiled reassuringly, and Pete answered, "No, sir. It won't make me nervous,"

No, it wont, he thought, but other things might. Like the orbit of the Crape Ring.

His eyes were heavy with lack of sleep; a headache throbbed insistently at his temples. Dimly, he was aware of opening radio contact with the astrogator of the Ring. "Are you all set out there?" Pete heard himself demanding.

"You bet! We have a couple of Cadets with us—and are they raring to go!"

"Five-forty seven-twenty one will be blast off," Pete muttered into the radio. "I have five-forty four-sixteen, Will you calibrate, please?"

"Calibrated!"

Pete turned around halfway to face Captain Saunders. "I'd still like to change that orbit, sir."

"That's ridiculous, Hodges. It's a good orbit you've plotted; it's the orbit they'll use. I'm not an orbiteer, but I know a fast orbit when I see one. You've given them the best, and they want speed this trip."

"Five-forty five on the nose!" sang the radio voice.

"Check," Pete said. Then, "I can't tell you why, Captain, but it's important."

Captain Saunders shook his head. "I don't understand you, Hodges. You're still an apprentice, however, and you may consider this an order. The orbit is to be maintained as originally plotted."

Pete shrugged, called into the radio, "Check remote control."

"Okay, tower. You've got us perfectly. When you press that little button of yours, we'll be off—in, um-m-m-m, one minute and fifteen seconds."

"I never realized this before," Big Pete said, sitting in a chair at the far end of the room, "but the situation in the tower is just as tense as that which you find in the ship itself. Maybe more, because at blast-off they don't really do any work. It's completely up to the tower, and you have about one minute to settle this little argument."

"It's already settled," Captain Saunders told him. "I don't know why your son wants to be ornery. Well, whatever his reason is, it doesn't matter; we're keeping this orbit."

"Forty seconds!" the radio voice barked. "Lord, it will be good to clear orbits again."

Sure, Pete thought, it will he good—right into a pirate trap. ... A spaceship orbit, an ellipse with one focal point in the sun. Draw that other focal point wherever you like—except that one particular point will lead to piracy. And I have no choice!

"Ten seconds, tower!"

Pete flipped over the standby switch, heard a loud beep from the ship outside, signifying that the tower had control.

"Four seconds! Three! Two—one—"

Mechanically, Pete pressed the firing stud. A short wave radio beam on precisely the right frequency pulled the safeties out of the Crape Rings controlled atomic pile. There was a deep-throated roar and the light of a dozen suns burned in through the tower's glare-proof windows.

Slowly, majestically, the Crape Ring soared skyward, balancing with perfect grace atop a pillar of flame. Accelerating, the shaft of fire streaked higher and higher. The Crape Ring became a tiny dot reflecting the crimson of the newly risen sun.

It disappeared.

For several moments after that, Pete could sec the streak of flame high up in the sky. Then it, too, was gone, leaving only a black line in the crisp early-morning blue.

"Whew!" Big Pete mopped his brow, "When I was a kid out there I used to think the tower boys had it easy."

"They don't," Captain Saunders explained with a smile. "You can't plot any orbit any old way. A slight miscalculation will send a ship streaking out of the solar system altogether, and while it could correct the mistake with its own power, so much fuel probably would be exhausted that it wouldn't have enough left to brake for a landing."

Pete stood up. "I think I'll go home and take a nice long nap."

His father chuckled softly. "I'd say you need one, son!

Two days later, Garr rushed into the tower excitedly. "Pete! Hey, Pete—"

"What's up?"

"I just got my orders, that's what. They don't give you much time!"

"What do you mean?"

"You're sending a ship off at sundown tonight, aren't you? Out to the asteroids, the long way, past the sun?"

Pete nodded.

"Well," Garr said, "I'll be on it. Me, I'll be on it! I'm going to space at last." He shook Pete's hand wildly, then, as if he had forgotten all about it, shook hands again. "I'm going to space."

Then he danced a crazy jig, balancing his tall, lanky frame first on one foot, then the other. He cavorted madly about the tower, singing the Spaceman's Chant in a high falsetto. After a time, Pete entered into the spirit of things, joining him in the song—

"Ho-ho Ho! for the void and far away-aay!"

"A couple of lunatics!" Captain Saunders laughed, entering the room.

"I—I'm sorry, sir," Pete stammered. "We—"

"Forget it. Don't you think I know what it's like to go to space for the first time? Have your fun, boys, and listen. Pete, you can take the evening off if you'd like. I'll have one of the other orbiteers take the ship up. You can watch your friend leave. Okay?"

"Yes, sir!" they both shouted together, and ran from the room.

The ship reared its pointed prow high up out of the blasting pit. "She's a beauty, isn't she?" said Garr. "The best," Pete agreed.

Garr frowned, but almost at once he was smiling

64

Eacthbovnd

again. "You know, I really wanted to go to Mars, and they're shipping me out to the asteroids instead. Well, I'll get to Mars some day, and meanwhile, there'll be a lot of work to do in the asteroids. We'll be landing on Ceres, and after that all the Cadets will be going out in two-man ships, checking on the miners. I'll like that, Pete."

The asteroid Ceres, Pete knew, was round, a man-sized chunk of miniature planet, over four hundred and twenty miles in diameter. When an astronomical body reached a certain size, physical law dictated its shape: it had to be round. But many of the thousands of asteroids that spun around the sun in their eternal orbits between Mars and Jupiter were too small for that—jagged lumps of rock careening chaotically through the void. The asteroid belt was a swarm of cosmic debris—and dangerous, unless you calculated your orbit in advance. Even the smallest speck of an asteroid could pulverize a spaceship.

"I guess I don't have to say 'good luck,' " Pete told his friend. "You know how I feel, Garr."

"Sure," Garr nodded. "And don't worry about me, I can take care of myself. There's only one thing that bothers me."

"What's that?"

"Out in the swarm, my shipmate will be Roger Gorham. It isn't fair, Pete. It should be you. We planned it that way for a long time, but now I'm going, and leaving you behind on Earth."

"You're not leaving me!" Pete cried. "Don't let it bother you, Garr—it wasn't your idea. If they say I'm unfit, I guess I'm unfit. And anyway, this is a heck of a time to talk about that. You're going to space, man —you're going to space!" "Yeah," Garr said. "Yeah."

And then a group of Cadets had come onto the field marching slowly toward their waiting ship.

"We'll thunder off to Io Out in the Jovian Moons! We'll seek the skies and feast our eyes And plunder Martian ruins!"

They all seemed deliriously happy, all but one. Even Garr joined in, singing louder than the rest. But behind the little group came a stocky figure, walking indifferently, not singing.

Roger Gorham.

Pete couldn't help overhearing them. "Must you sing that silly song?" Roger demanded.

And Garr stormed, "What's the matter with you? Of course we want to sing it; it's a beautiful song!"

"Well, I think it's childish."

"Childish?" Garr was incredulous. "Why'd you join the Cadets?"

"It wasn't my idea," Roger sneered. "My father thought I'd get some good experience this way, before I become an executive in his space-lines." He laughed dryly. "I don't intend to stay in the Cadets until I'm twenty-five. I'd go crazy out there with nothing to do."

Garr snorted his disgust. "I guess you would," he said, and stalked back toward Pete. "Nice guy, huh, Petey-boy?"

Pete smiled. "Just what the Solar Cadets need!"

Garr looked behind him, saw the last of the Cadets filing into the ship. A steward stood on the runway, staring at Garr meaningfully.

"That's for me, Pete. They're all set now; so, so I guess this is good-by."

"Yes," Pete said. "It's good-by."

"But heck, Petey-boy! Not forever. I'll be back before we know it—and I'll bring you a chunk of asteroid, too. Along with some mighty interesting tales about what lies out there. . ."

"So long!" Pete called, watching Garr run for the ship.

His friend waved once from the runway, then turned and strode in through the port. A moment later, the space-lock clanged shut. The steward got off the runway and two men in overalls began to wheel it away.

A port policeman motioned Pete back away from the blasting pit, continued motioning with his hands until Pete stood in the safety zone, two hundred yards from the ship. A crowd stood there, eager, expectant.

"Remember that one third from last, that was my son!"

"They're going to the asteroids. It should be won-

derful.......... "

"Any kid who doesn't join the Cadets just doesn't know what he's missing . . ."

"Listen! Hear that noise? Means they're ready!"

It was the familiar beep of the ship-to-tower signal, and a moment later the ship roared away.

Garr had gone to space! But when Pete closed his eyes, he saw the sneering face of Roger Gorham.

Chapter 8 pirate

D

ETE wandered aimlessly away from the observation deck, only half-aware of the crowd dispersing slowly. Someone tapped his shoulder, and startled, he whirled around.

"GrasP

"Yeah, it's me. Hello, sonny."

"I thought you said we wouldn't have to meet any longer."

"Yeah, I said that. But I just wanted to thank you for the message you sent the other day."

"Don't thank me! I had no choice, but I wouldn't have done it, not unless . . ."

"Relax, sonny. Look—I like you. I mean that, I really do. But your trouble is you don't understand me."

"What's there to understand? You're a cheap, no-good crook!"

"Sonny!" Ganymede Gus admonished. "Sonny! Let me tell you a story. Wait, don't run away! It will only take a minute. Years ago, I was washed out of space. Why? Because they suddenly decided you had to be a Cadet graduate to pilot a ship or to be a crewman."

"How would you have liked that? Not so good, eh? Okay—I looked for a job. I didn't just look for a few days. I looked for years. But all I'd known was spaceflight, and because I wasn't a graduate, they wanted no part of me. I had to make a living . . ."

"But not at the expense of others!"

"I tried, but it was rough. Finally, I got in with my associates, and that way I can make good money. They don't like me, sonny, because I think they know I don't like them. So it's purely business, and we work together."

"All right," Pete said coldly. "You've had your say. What's all this got to do with me?"

"That's the whole point. Why don't you do what I did? Work with us, take your cut—and stay happy. Here." Gus reached into his pocket, came up with a thick roll of bills. "You've earned these, you sure have . . ."

Pete thrust the hand away from him. "Take your filthy money!" he cried. "I don't want it."

Shrugging his thin shoulders, Ganymede Gus pocketed the roll of bills. "I was only trying, but heck, I don't care. I can always keep it myself and double my own profit. The sooner you learn . . ."

"Look," Pete said, jabbing a finger against Gus's chest. "I don't want to see you again. I'm finished, understand? If you bother me once more, I'll call the police. Threaten my family, go ahead, I don't care. The police can take care of that."

"You're wrong," Ganymede Gus declared. "You haven't seen the last of me, and you'll continue to work for us, too. No, I won't threaten your family— not if it looks like Sam's strong-arm methods won't pay off. But there's another way, a better way. No, I won't tell you about it now. Maybe in a couple of days, sonny, but not now. Meanwhile, use your head. At least until you hear from me, don't go to the police. You'll regret it if you do."

Ganymede Gus did not wait for an answer. Instead, he turned away and quickly lost himself in the crowd.

I can go to the police, Pete thought, and end this before it goes any further. But what does Gus have up his sleeve this time? He didn't sound as if he was fooling—and yet, and yet the deeper I get into this mess, the harder it'll be to pull myself out. If I hadn't started in the first place. . . .

Idly, he walked into the tower, took the elevator up to the observation level.

Captain Saunders was reading a newspaper, but he looked up sharply. "Oh, Pete."

"Hello, sir. How was the blast-off?"

"Fine. It was fine. Pete . . ." Saunders seemed at a loss for words, and that wasn't like the captain at all.

"Yes, sir? What is it?"

"Here, Pete. Read this." And Captain Saunders handed him the newspaper. The headline caught his attention at once, but what followed was even worse.

UnknownPirates Loot Crape Ring

Cargo of Precious Gems Stolen Solar Patrol Suspects inside Job

Wednesday, Luna Base (Interplanetary Press) —A daring attack was made an estimated seven hours ago on the spaceship Crape Ring, heading

out fifty thousand miles from Luna. Somehow, unknown pirates intercepted the Crape Ring's orbit, joining airlocks with the ship in deep space and making off with half a million dollars' worth of precious stones.

Although the masked looters were armed, no casualties have been reported. Speculation in high Luna Base circles indicates what Captain E. J. Turner of the Solar Patrol calls an "inside job." Said Turner, "It is impossible to assume that the pirates chanced upon the Crape Ring by a stroke of luck. By some unknown means they learned of the ship's orbit and hence were in a position to intercept it."

Captain Turner further told this reporter that an investigation was being pushed, although he admitted that the Patrol "has no leads whatever." (See later edition for complete details.)

"What do you think of that?" Saunders demanded.

Pete said nothing, for his worst fears had been confirmed. Ganymede Gus was in league with a group of space-pirates—and Pete's information had led them to the Crape Ring!

"I said, what do you think of that?"

"I—I don't know. I . . ."

"You look like you've seen a ghost, and—say! You wanted to change that orbit at the last minute." "Yes, sir. I did."

"It didn't make sense, yet you wanted to change it. Why, Pete?"

"I—I can't answer that."

"You can't answer it! Are you protecting someone, Pete? Is that it?"

"No, sir. I'm not protecting anyone. But I can't answer your question."

Saunders was angry, and his face showed it. He stormed, "I—never mind! If you don't want to answer to me, you don't have to. But before too long that Patrol investigation will reach us here, and when it does, you'll have to answer to the law. By space, if you had anything to do with this—"

He slammed his hand down on the surface of his desk.

"I guess that means I'm not working here any more," Pete said.

"It doesn't mean anything of the sort! I think you're connected with this in some way, Pete. I hope it isn't as bad as that, but until we find out, you stay here. I'm not going to condemn you because I happen to believe you're hiding something."

Pete mumbled, "Thank you." That was the worst part of it. Captain Saunders had to be nice to him, perhaps had to stick his own neck into a mess of trouble because he still had faith in Pete. But Pete knew he didn't deserve it. If they threw the book at him—well, you couldn't blame them.

Pete took the elevator down, stepped out on the spaceficld. Far-off toward the horizon, ground crews scurried around a ship like so many insects. By morning, it would be ready for blast-off. Down to the smallest detail, the men in the ground crew had to do their job well, otherwise disaster might result. And the same applied to the ship's crew itself.

The world worked like that, Pete knew. You had to cooperate. If you didn't, it meant trouble. If you couldn't face something which had happened, if, instead, you turned away from your fellows and took the easiest way out—then you were asking for trouble. More than that, you were behaving like a coward... . Then he'd go to the police!

No—no, he couldn't do that. Ganymede Gus still had one final hand to play, and until he played it, Pete must wait. He could always give himself up, that would be the easy part of it. Meanwhile, Ganymede Gus might be able to involve others, innocent people, and Pete did not want that.

The police would have to wait.

"See the newspaper, sonny?" Ganymede Gus demanded.

"Oh, no! Not you again—" Gus was becoming a very annoying habit.

"Sure, Pete. I just ran down the road a ways and got me a copy of the paper. Thought you might like to see it."

"I already have," Pete said. "But I warned you." He took a quick step forward, grabbing Gus's left arm. "We're going to the police!"

Gus smiled. "You see my right hand, sonny? It's in my pocket, and I'm holding a blaster there—pointed at you. We're going, all right, but not to the police. There's some place I want to take you."

Pete shrugged wearily, got into stride with the scrawny ex-spaceman. In fifteen minutes they had reached the Carnival. In twenty, they had entered the familiar sideshow, had climbed up a flight of stairs.

"I know this place," Pete said. "If you think it will do any good to have that guy Sam work me over again—"

Gus seemed offended. "How crude do you think I am? That was necessary then. It isn't necessary now. Just come along."

They entered the room, and Pete saw that three men were waiting for them. Pete advanced warily, and Gus offered him a chair near the window. "Sam you know," said Gus, gesturing to the hulking figure off in one corner of the room.

Sam grunted a greeting which Pete did not return.

"And this man here is Clarence Roth," Gus continued the introductions. The man was impossibly tall and thin, almost a caricature of Garr, but he had a long, solemn face which, Pete knew, would not break into Garr's ready smile. "Pleas't'meecha," the man shrilled rapidly.

"And over here," continued Ganymede Gus, "is the man we all take orders from—Mr. Fairchild."

Mr. Fairchild was well-dressed, good-looking, sure of himself. About thirty-five, Pete figured, perhaps forty. "How do you do, Peter? I've heard a lot about you. Our organization is always in need of good men, and Gus informs me that we can use you on a permanent basis, both here in White Sands—and elsewhere."

Pete's voice stuck in his throat. His palms were clammy and he could feel the pulses pounding at his temples, but he said, "Gus made a mistake. I don't want to work for you."

"Your desire in the matter," Mr. Fairchild told him blandly, "is hardly worth considering. Oh, don't misunderstand. I like satisfied employees, but that can wait. You will become satisfied in time. Meanwhile,

we need you. Therefore, you come to work for us, as I have indicated. It is all very simple."

"He's already been working for us," Gus pointed out.

"Yes, I know, but not on a permanent basis. When you wanted some information, you contacted Peter. But I want him to relay his information to us as a matter of course. Do you see the difference?" Mr. Fair-child lit a cigarette. "Further, we won't stay here in White Sands forever, and when our operations enter a new phase entirely, we'll need Peter along with us. Peter, how would you like to visit Antarctica?"

"Antarctica?" Pete gasped.

"Well, I see you're interested. But never mind—more about that some other time, perhaps. Now I have a question which I would like you to answer, and all I want is a one-word reply. Will you work for us?"

"No."

The man called Clarence Roth sucked in his breath sharply; Sam thumped his left fist against his right palm meaningfully; Ganymede Gus shook his head. But Mr. Fairchild remained unruffled. "As you can see," he told Pete, "our Mr. Smith would like to take the matter into his own hands. He prefers violence to any other form of arbitration. Although he cannot become quite so violent, our Mr. Roth agrees. And Ganymede Gus is disappointed in you. As for myself, young man, I've always been, a reasonable person. I am ready to reason with you."

"It won't do any good," Pete advised him. "I've had enough of all this."

"He says that periodically!"Ganymede Gus chortled.

"But each time I've come up with something else which has changed his mind."

"This time," Mr. Fairchild predicted, "we are in a position to change his mind permanently. Consider, Peter: do you like your family? Are you proud of the name your father has made?"

"Of course—but you can forget about that. Sam threatened me with that a while ago, but the police can take care of it."

Mr. Fairchild nodded. "At least you're honest. But no, that isn't what I had in mind. I've referred to your father's name. You are proud of it, and that's both understandable and commendable. Thus you felt bad when you couldn't take that name back into space, and now you certainly wouldn't want to do anything else to hurt it, isn't that so? Fine, fine. And this time I don't mean an error of omission; I mean one of commission."

"I don't understand." Pete frowned.

"Recently you gave Gus some information concerning the orbit of the Spaceship Crape Ring, did you not?"

"Yes, I did. But Gus . . ."

"Why you did it does not matter. Let's confine ourselves to what is relevant. Still more recently, the Crape Ring was boarded in deep space, a fortune in jewelry stolen. Right?"

"Y-yes." Doubtfully.

"That was made possible by the intelligence you passed along to Ganymede Gus. You are, therefore, in the eyes of the law, as much responsible for the loot-

ing of the Crape Ring as any of the men who actually boarded the ship. Can you see the logic in that?"

"Sure," Pete said. "Of course I can see it. But . . ."

"But nothing. You are guilty. Thoroughly guilty.Very well. Were the police to discover that, were they to bring you to trial for your crime, that would bring a smear to your family name. Consider, Peter. From what I hear, your father is now an unhappy man. One son was killed in space, the other is earthbound. On top of that, if you were to be sentenced to a prison term . . ."

"You wouldn't dare!" Pete cried. "You'd implicate yourself as well! I'll admit it, I'm in a mess. But I don't intend to hide it forever. Some day soon I'll have to tell the police. I mean that. And when I do, all of you will—but that's beside the point. You wouldn't dare to turn me in, because you'd be admitting your own guilt if you did."

"Good!" Mr. Fairchild chuckled. "You have a fine head on your shoulders. I like that, despite the fact that what you say isn't quite true. There are certain men in our organization, Peter, who are expendable. Along with you, I can implicate them, and nothing will ever lead to me. I'm a respectable business man with a good record. No one will believe any ridiculous accusations about me. Rest assured I can do precisely what I say—and will, too, if you force my hand."

Ganymede Gus stood up, paced back and forth nervously. "When you say some men are expendable, do you mean anyone in this room?"

"Figure it out for yourself," Mr. Fairchild told him,

Piraiesl

77

laughing. "Remember, Gus: you brought Peter into this in the first place."

"Well, I don't think it's fair . . ."

"No one pays you to determine what is and what is not fair! You're wanted by the police too, Gus. So is Sam, and so is Clarence. And don't you forget it. Now, Peter—"

It was all very logical, Pete realized. It made good sense, and it made it with finality. Mr. Fairchild was the puppet-master, dangling his men on strings which he could cut at any time. They had a set of simple alternatives: they could obey him or they could suffer the consequences. And, Pete knew, the same applied to a young ex-Cadet named Peter Hodges. He did not care about himself any longer; he knew he would have to settle this in his own way, and quietly. If he had committed any crime, then he was prepared to pay for it, but only if he could do that without bringing shame to Big Pete.

"Now, Peter," Mr. Fairchild was saying, "I'm waiting for your answer. Will you work for us? Or, to put it in your own language, are you ready to become a pirate?"

Pete wondered what it would be like to spend several years in prison. "I'll work for you," he said.

Ckdptet 9 Red-Handed

WISH you could tell mc what's bothering you, Pete. I know it's a trite thing to say, but that's what fathers are for."

"Nothing, Pop. It's nothing."

"You know I can't believe that! You haven't been yourself for a couple of weeks, ever since, um-m-m-m, it was about the time that spaceship was looted, I think."

"I said it was nothing!"

"Don't snap at me, Pete. I'm trying to help. And your mother has noticed it, too. You've been nervous, fidgety. Your nerves are on hairsprings, you haven't eaten well; your mother says she's heard you moaning in your sleep.

"We had a little talk a while ago, remember? That night you came in late? You told me to forget about it, to let you handle it. But you admitted something was wrong."

"It was then, but it's all cleared up. Please, Pop!" Big Pete shrugged wearily. "Well, I can only try. There's mail for you, Pete."

"Who from?"

"I'll let you see that for yourself," Big Pete smiled, handing his son an envelope.

"Holy rockets!" Pete cried. "It's from Garr! But how did he get out to Ceres so fast?"

"That's this modern age for you," Big Pete told him. "Actually, it's been two weeks since Garr left. All right, figure he got to Ceres four or five days ago. He wrote you a letter, deposited it with Spacemail. The contents were radioed from Ceres to Earth, the letter was typed automatically from the radioed message. So— two weeks to travel out to Ceres and write home about it!"

Pete ripped open the bright blue Spacemail envelope, got a glimpse of the stamp canceled out with the bold black letters, "Radio-post."

Then his heart was pounding furiously as he read Garr's first letter from space. "Ceres Base, September 18-

"Oear Pete: Hiya, boy! Spaceflight is everything they ever told us, and more! Sure, acceleration is a little rough on the anatomy, but so is football. The only one who really seemed to be bothered by it was— you guessed it—Roger Gorham!

"Besides, it only lasted for a couple of hours. After that, wc got our first view of Earth—from space! I won't attempt to describe it, I don't think anyone could. But it makes you forget all about what you've gone through in acceleration. As you probably know, we used most of our fuel pulling out of the Earth's gravitational field. We landed on the moon for refueling, and because the speed of escape there is less than a third what it is on Earth, acceleration was comparatively easy. Also, we didn't use up much fuel, and we went straight on to Ceres.

"You feel a little funny in space for the first time. You read about it, sure, and you study the theory. But it's not the same thing. You're weightless. You weigh exactly nothing, because there's no gravity. You don't walk inside the ship, Pete. You float. You have to learn how to swim through air, and at first it isn't easy. But it's good for gags, and we had a lot of fun with guys who learned slow, like Roger.

"Picture it if you can. We had to drink liquids out of closed containers, through straws. The stuff would just float away if we didn't. All our motions had to be slow and exaggerated, for one wrong move could send us floating off to the ceiling and I've got a couple of good-sized bumps on my head to prove it!

"And the stars, Pete, you should see them. There's no atmosphere to hide them, so they're bright, every color in the rainbow and maybe a few we've never thought of. All against a deep black background like velvet, and you get a pretty good idea of how big everything is and how small we are.

"About the only thing that scared me a little was the sun. You can see much more of it than you can from Earth—again, because there's no atmosphere. There's the corona and the solar prominences, licking out like long tongues of flame. Also, we were on the solar run, which means we cut across the orbits of Venus and Mercury, and cut right on ahead of the sun, too. That baby is big, Pete, more than eight hundred thousand miles in diameter, and you could almost feel it pulling. If our rockets missed fire just once, we'd have been fried—but good.

"Actually, though, some of the seasoned veterans out here tell me that the asteroids are a lot more dangerous. Reason? We've only been out in the swarm about thirty years, and most of the smaller rocks are still uncharted. That means you really have to keep on your toes, and they generally won't let a ship through the swarm until an orbit's been plotted carefully in advance. Even then, we cut rockets and slipped through real slow, no more than two or three miles a second. I was on radar duty at the time, and the little warning pips were bouncing on and off the screen constantly. Pretty hectic, because each one stood for a slab of rock which could crush our ship to a pulp.

"So, it'll be several weeks at least before any of the Cadets take their own ships up. Meanwhile, they'll be giving us intensive training here at Ceres Base. And I can tell you this, pal—I love it. . . .

"We're even learning some interesting history, if you can call it history. They tell us that the asteroids once were part of a planet out here beyond Mars, a planet which for some unknown reason exploded. They don't know why, and they don't know what happened to the rest of the planet (if you make an estimate of the mass of all the material in the asteroid belt, it would be a heck of a lot smaller than little Mercury), but that's the theory.

"So far, then, it's been wonderful. About the only thing which bothers all the boys out here is a report of piracy near the moon. How any people can resort to something like that! Well, I guess it takes all kinds to make a world. Say hello to your folks for me, Pete, and to Captain Saunders. I'll write again after something interesting has happened.

"Good luck, fellah, and let me know what you're

doing.                                                                                                Garr"

It was a fine letter, Pete thought as he tucked it away. But why did Garr have to mention that business about pirates? Garr did not mean any harm, naturally; he didn't know a thing about Pete's trouble. And everything Garr had said was true. It would take a mighty low kind of person to get involved in something like that.

Like me, Pete thought bitterly. . . .

It was forty-eight hours later when Pete learned about the Vulcan. The Vulcan was a big ship, a first-class freighter, carrying expensive furs for the more well-to-do colonists on Mars. Scheduled for take-oif the following morning at sunrise, it would travel the economy run, since there was no urgent need for the cargo. That meant a path through space that would touch the Martian orbit but not cross it. It also meant that Pete had to send the information to Sam Smith, care of General Delivery.

He balked at first. He couldn't do that! The cargo was one thing, and that was bad enough, but there was always the chance that the Vulcan's space-hardened crew might resist, and Pete would be responsible for any casualties.

Yet the alternative was shame for Big Pete and a black mark against the name he had made so famous.

Hating himself for it, Pete posted the letter.

Later, Captain Saunders met him at the tower, a broad grin on his face. "Well," he said, "they've got him."

"Who's got who?"

"Didn't you know? Um-m-m-m, no, you couldn't have, since the news was just released. Remember that ship, the Crape Ring?"

Pete said that he remembered.

"And remember that a man named Turner with the Patrol thought it was an inside job?"

Pete nodded glumly.

"Well, it was! The pirates damaged the Crape Ring's tubes so it couldn't follow them. But a temporary repair job made it possible to bring the ship in, and when it landed a member of the crew confessed!"

"What?"

"I said, a member of the crew confessed. So far, he hasn't implicated anyone. He just says he was paid for the information, but the Patrol thinks they'll be able to get it out of him in time."

Pete could hardly talk. "You—you m-mean someone confessed to revealing the Crape Ring's orbit? Really?"

"Of course. That's what I've been saying all along. It looks like they'll be able to nip those pirates in the bud. A good thing, too, because once space-pirates start operating on a big scale, it's mighty hard to stop them."

Pete excused himself, went outside. He stood for a long time staring across the bright expanse of the spacefield. I've been a fool, he thought. They never had anything on me, because I've never given them any information they didn't already know. Someone else was paid to tell them about the Crape Ring. But why did they want me to double check it? Of course! So they could make me believe I was implicated, so they could hold that as a threat over my head and force me to work for them from here on out.

And now that he knew, he could report them to the police and end the whole sordid affair. He could— no! They had him again, this time with the Vulcan. He could report them to the authorities now, but they had his letter, and he'd be right back where he started from.

Then, somehow, he must change the Vulcan's orbit, sometime between now and sunrise tomorrow. He'd tried that once, and ran into a brick wall when Captain Saunders refused to consider it. This time his one chance lay in stealth. He must get into the tower during the early morning hours, alter the orbit secretly, and get away again. And above all, he must not be caught doing it. No one would believe he was trying to save the Vulcan.

A dark, moonless night. Overhead, the great span of the Milky Way arched across the sky. Here and there on the broad expanse of the spacefield, bright yellow lights dotted the inky blackness. It was silent, utterly silent, except for the occasional clanking of machinery as ground crews worked over the dark hulks of spaceships.

The tower loomed as a darker shadow in the night, a gaunt finger pointing up at the stars. A sentry would pass in about thirty seconds, precisely at 3:00 A.M.

On schedule, Pete heard his boots crunching across the gravel. From the far end of the field, the blue-white signal light swept its bright swath toward them. Closer-Pete fell flat on his stomach, breathing hard. He thought he heard the guard utter a startled oath, but he couldn't be sure. The beam of light seemed a long time in passing, and now he could hear the guard's footsteps shuffling in his direction. A voice hissed, "Is anyone out there?" Silence.

Again the footsteps advanced. Pete still lay flat, not daring to move, hardly daring to breathe. The light had swept away beyond the tower, but it would return in two minutes. Meanwhile, the guard came closer.

Pete stirred in the blackness, rose to hands and knees. He picked up a handful of pebbles and hurled them far-off to the left. He heard them clatter on one .of the paved runways which led out to the blasting pits, heard a surprised grunt from the guard.

Then the man was trotting away across the gravel, toward the sound. Pete got to his feet and darted toward the tower. His own feet disturbed the gravel and the sound they made was almost like thunder to his ears. He could not tell if the guard were still running.

"Hold it! Who are you?"

The guard had stopped, had heard Pete's footsteps. But by then, he'd reached the paved area which surrounded the tower, reached the blue night lights which

hung suspended from an archway. He slipped into the shadows and waited.

"I heard you running! Who are you?" Footsteps again, firm, heading straight for the tower.

Pete ran. He darted in a zigzag path and out across the spacefield. Footsteps pounded after him. The guard, he realized, would have a marauder at a great disadvantage, but Pete probably knew the terrain as well as anyone. Still, he sought a place to hide, while the guard simply tore after him.

The guard gained.

Pete stopped dead in his tracks, heard the guard thunder closer. Silent as the night itself, Pete slipped off to one side, ducked down the steep embankment of a blasting pit, rolled over and over across the hard-packed earth until he had reached the bottom.

He heard the guard's footsteps disappearing in the other direction. He was tired; he was breathing hard. He had wrenched his right shoulder while sliding down the embankment, but he could not wait. Grimly, he climbed to his feet, used his hands as well, to struggle up the deep slope.

A cool wind fanned his cheeks when he reached the level of the field itself, and then he was running once again, charging pell-mell for the tower. No unauthorized persons were permitted in the vicinity after hours, and that included junior orbiteers.

Breathless, Pete reached the door, inserted his key in the lock. He took the stairs three at a time, reached the tower room high up at the top of the structure. He could switch on the lights, but they would attract attention. He had to work fast, for the guard might return at any moment. Probably would, if he used his head-Pete thrust a hand into the pocket of his jumper, came up with a small flashlight. He found the Vulcan's orbit chart, did some quick calculating and even quicker erasing. Rapidly, he sketched the new orbit in. The Vulcan would use more fuel this way, but it should pass at least a million miles solar-north of any rendezvous with the pirates.

From far-off, Pete thought he heard the faint wail of sirens. Quickly, he sketched in the final changes, then checked his work. In his haste he might have made a mistake—no, it seemed perfect.

Suddenly, bright lights flashed on overhead!

Half-blinded by their glare, Pete whirled around. Someone had set the master-switch in the Administration Building. Every light in the tower glared brilliantly, and after his eyes stopped tearing, Pete looked through the window and saw that the field, too, glowed with thousands of tiny points of light. Half a dozen arc lights threw their beams across the blackness, crossing one another, almost like great silver swords.

Pete hurled himself downstairs, reached the door, opened it. Far away across the field, a score of figures were running toward him, yelling.

He ran around to the other side of the tower, set out in long, loping strides across the field. He ignored the beams that flashed and stabbed through the darkness, catching him in their glare every few seconds. If he tried to avoid them, he'd get no place at all.

His one chance was to reach the other side of the field and hide out on the New Mexico desert until he had a chance to slip away and back home. The desert would be hot and dry and he might not last a full day out there under the broiling sun, but still, he had to try it. Meanwhile, first things came first, and he was dimly aware of figures closing in on all sides of him.

If they found him—and it now seemed a certainty that they would—they would also discover that he had tampered with the Vulcan s orbit. They would change it back to its original course, and the night's wild adventure would have been for nothing. In that case, he had no choice but to delay the Vulcan itself. If he somehow could reach the ship, enter it, a few seconds would suffice to see that it did not take off on schedule. It would have to wait until the following morning at sunrise, and an entirely new orbit would be necessary. A twenty-four-hour delay, then, would do it!

The guards were everywhere, and so were the blinding, stabbing lights. He ran almost haphazardly, first in one direction, then in another, trying to elude his pursuers. He broke clear briefly, and, his breath coming in tortured gasps, he sprinted toward the Vulcan, a tall, slender shape in the night.

He reached it, saw the ground-crew scurrying around, doing last minute things. Lights played on the hull of the ship, men climbed the scaffolding rigged around it . . .

"Hey, young feller! What're you doing here?"

Splat! Pete couldn't help it. He balled his fist and hit the man, saw him stumble back and fall away into the darkness. He did not wait to see if the man were unconscious. Instead, he began to climb the scaffolding, and that at least would not attract attention. He'd look like a member of the ground-crew.

The Vulcan rested vertically in its blasting pit, and Pete climbed fifty feet off the ground before he reached the ship's port. He tugged at the handle, sighed his relief when the massive metal door swung in easily. Apparently, workers were within the ship. Pete swung in toward the air lock perilously, his feet dangling out over emptiness. A yard or more separated the skeleton structure of girders from the hull itself, but after a while he got the idea. He swung his body like a pendulum, gathering momentum. Finally, he thrust himself forward, letting go of the scaffold.

For a moment, he hung suspended, saw the ground reeling beneath him. Then he had tumbled into the air lock, and trembling, he got to his feet, ran through the little corridor and pushed open the inner door.

He was within the Vulcan.

He walked through the companionway, heard the sounds of work on all sides of him. Ahead, he could see the portal of the astrogation room, ajar. He plunged through, found a sturdy metal chair and hefted it experimentally overhead. It would do . . .

He brought the chair down with savage force against the radar instruments, heard the tinkle of glass breaking, the protesting whine of metal against metal. At length he was satisfied. He turned and started back through the companionway. He got as far as the airlock's inner door.

Three uniformed men, blasters in their hands, waited there. Pete surrendered quietly.

Chapter 10 Jatlbreak!

I

HE man's name was Adams, and he was very thorough. The guards had returned with Pete to the tower, and there they were met by Captain Saunders and Adams, an Inspector from the Patrol, went to work.

"Why did you wreck the radar, Hodges?" "I had to."

"That's no answer. Why did you wreck the radar?" "I had to!"

Captain Saunders said, "You also changed the Vulcan s orbit. Why?"

"Same answer, sir. I had to."

Inspector Adams was not satisfied. "Don't you realize that you're in trouble? You're in a lot of trouble, young man, and I'd suggest you cooperate."

"I'm sorry. I have nothing to say."

"Were you changing the Vulcan s orbit so that friends of yours could—uh, meet the ship in deep space?"

"No."

"Then why did you change the orbit?"

"To prevent piracy.""To prevent it?"

"Yes! If the orbit were changed, the pirates would rendezvous with nothing but the void."

"How did you know pirates had learned of the Vulcan's orbit?"

"I can't answer that."

"Why did you destroy the radar?"

"For the same reason. I'd been discovered; the altered orbit would be discovered too. I wrecked the radar to delay blast-off."

Inspector Adams frowned. "Well, in that you were successful. It will be at least a day before the Vulcan takes off."

"Good!"

"Good? Do you realize you'll cost the company a pretty penny? That's a Gorham liner, and the Gorham ships are never late, which is why they're the largest outfit. This delay might cost them cancellation of a contract. But that's not the point. You are, Hodges. You did all this for a reason. I still don't know that."

Captain Saunders shook his head sadly. "I never would have suspected it of him, not of Pete. It's funny, how sometimes you can be wrong about people. Or how a family can change so fast. Big Pete Hodges was a great man, but look at his son—I just don't understand. Pete—tell me, Pete—is there something you're hiding? If you told us everything now, if you made a clean breast of it...."

"No! I said I have nothing to say."

"How did you know about these alleged pirates?" Inspector Adams demanded again.

"I just knew," Pete told him lamely.

"Maybe you just had a hunch!"

"All right," Pete said wearily. "Call it that if you want, a hunch."

"A hunch! Bah! I see we'll have no cooperation from you, Hodges. You leave no alternative. I'm having a warrant issued for your arrest, and you'll be jailed until a hearing is arranged."

"Can't you leave him with me?" Captain Saunders suggested. "I'll be responsible." And, when Inspector Adams shook his head, "Then how about his father, Big Pete Hodges. You know of him?"

"I do."

"Why couldn't you leave Pete in his father's custody? Maybe after a while he'll be ready to talk, and you can save the family the disgrace of prison."

Inspector Adams shook his head again. "Wouldn't do. This young man is innocent until proven guilty, naturally. But he'll have to remain in custody until a hearing. Of course, bail could be raised."

"What will the charge be?" Captain Saunders wanted to know. Pete could sense an ambivalence in the tower officer. Captain Saunders had liked him, and now the man did not know what to do. Pete had been caught red-handed. Very well, he was guilty. But of what—and why?

"The charge?" said Inspector Adams, "Um-m-m-m, I don't know. That's not really my department. Vandalism, probably, if they can't prove anything else. But obviously, there's more here than meets the eye. A responsible lad doesn't just change an orbit and mess up a ship's radar without a reason."

Captain Saunders scratched his head. "He once wanted to change an orbit before, but I didn't let him. The Crape Ring it was."

"Crape Ring, eh? Say, wasn't that the ship which was looted out off Luna?"

Captain Saunders nodded. "Yes, it was."

"And you say he didn't change the orbit?"

"That's right, Inspector. He didn't. Soon after that, the ship was looted."

"Then apparently he knew of these pirate activities that time too, only he couldn't do anything about it. The part I can't figure out is this: what's his connection, and how did he get his information? You still won't talk, Hodges?"

Pete remained tight lipped, shaking his head.

"Very well. I'll have to phone in for that warrant."

Advances in the science of psychology had minimized criminal activity. As a consequence, the White Sands prison was a small building, hardly looking like a jailhouse at all, except for the bars on the window. And when Pete arrived under Inspector Adams' watchful eye, he was the only prisoner.

They took his fingerprints, photographed him, deposited him in a small cell. The bank was comfortable enough; there was a tap of running ice water, a shower, a bathroom. But he could see the three bars running vertically across the small window.

He was in prison.

He knew he'd made a terrible mess of things. He'd have settled for anything but this. The son of Big Pete Hodges, in prison. It didn't bother him, not for himself. He deserved anything they gave him. But what about Big Pete? And what about his mother? They'd raised a son, they'd been proud of him, like all parents. Sure, it was a great disappointment and probably a deep hurt when they learned he could not go to space. But they still had faith in him, and he had let them down. Big Pete had liked his son's desire to work at the Spaceport, despite all the memories and the longings it might bring. And now Pete was in prison.

He sat glumly on his bunk, staring at the wall. He could never face his father again.

But just one hour later, Big Pete arrived at the White Sands prison. The turnkey let him into the little cell, and Pete averted his head.

"I came as soon as I heard, Pete." Big Pete's voice was almost a whisper. "It's a mistake, isn't it?"

"Please go away."

"It is a mistake! Tell me, Pete."

No answer.

"They've set the bail at only five hundred dollars. I'll have you out of here in a few minutes."

"No, you won't. I'd rather stay, Pop. Don't look so surprised, please. Don't you see, what would I do on the outside? People will look, people will talk . . ."

"What you're trying to say is that it isn't a mistake. You have done something, Pete! But the officer who called me wasn't very clear. Something about wrecking some equipment—"

Pete nodded. "Yes, something like that. But no bail. I won't leave here, not until they give me a hearing and decide what to do."

"I don't understand you. You sound as if you're ready to quit without a fight. . . ."

"No. I did something wrong. I'm going to be punished." If he remained in prison long enough, perhaps Ganymede Gus would recruit someone else for the pirates.

"That night at home," Big Pete was saying, "when you came in late after leaving your own welcome-home party—it has something to do with that, doesn't it?"

"Yes."

"And you still won't talk?" "No."

"Won't let me get you out of here?"

"No."

Big Pete shuffled about the cell for a moment, came to the door and gripped the bars in his big, strong hands. "I hope you can tell me some day, son. I hope we can talk about this and laugh. I hope—"

The bent old turnkey poked his head in from the corridor outside. "Rattlin' them bars 'cause you're fixin' to go? Okay, I'm comin'. I'm comin'."

Pete watched them go in silence, the little turnkey and the big ex-spaceman, his father. Before he reached the end of the corridor, Big Pete turned around once and said, "Remember, son, if you change your mind about anything, I'm near by."

"Well," Mr. Fairchild said smugly, "it certainly looks as if we're ready for phase two of our operations." Ganymede Gus peered out the window of their little

upstairs room doubtfully. Below bim the Carnival crowds surged and eddied.

"Yes and no," he said. "What you forget is this: we haven't got an orbiteer. Pete Hodges is in jail."

Mr. Fairchild waved his hand deprecatingly. "So what? Although I wish to thank you, Gus, for getting that information so fast. You don't think I intend to leave Peter in prison, do you?"

Sam Smith sat up eagerly, puffing on a big black cigar, "You mean we're gonna spring him—me and Clare?"

The man called Clarence Roth jumped to his feet. "Cut that out! You know I don't like to be called that-"

Sam Smith yawned and studied his thick fingernails, but Mr. Fairchild said, "No bickering, gentlemen, please. As for 'springing' Peter, I'm surprised at you, Sam. We don't operate like that. I feel that you intimate physical violence, and really, I have no such thing in mind."

Sam Smith looked very disappointed.

"But," continued Mr. Fairchild, "we will remove Peter from his unpleasant environment."

"We'd better act soon," Gus suggested. "We'll be leaving for the South in about six hours."

Sam Smith brightened. "Me, I never been down there before! You're sure we'll be safe? I mean—well, you know that place."

"The plans call for it," Mr. Fairchild assured him. "Frankly, I thought you would be the last one to worry, Sam. At any rate, you needn't; for everything is in readiness down there, that is, if Gus has made our reservations . . ."

"Like you said, boss, I chartered a jet-plane. At first they wanted to send a pilot along too, so I had to show them my phony license, . .

"You do know how to fly, Gus?"

"Me? What do you think! I used to pilot spaceships. What's a little jet-plane after you've tackled those babies?"

"Did you say chartered, Gus?"

"Well, yeah. For a whole year I had to charter it, especially when I told them we'd be heading south, all the way. Naturally, they thought I meant as far as Tierra del Fuego—they never dreamed anyone would want to go where we're going . . ."

"Good. That is precisely the way I wanted it. I hope the jet-plane has radar, for we'll need it."

"Radar and everything," Gus nodded. "New ship."

"Then we're all set for our journey. Now, about Peter. . ."

"Like your dinner, son?" The old turnkey removed the tray from Pete's cell. He had a long face and a lonely face, and it looked to Pete as if he wanted to talk.

"Oh, sure. It was fine."

"Cooked it myself, son. Sure did. Notice how dark it gets around these parts nights when there ain't no moon."

"Very dark," Pete agreed, staring into the gathering gloom outside his window. "How long you lived in these parts?" the old turnkey demanded. Then, not waiting for an answer, "Myself, I been living here all my life. That's sixty years, son. Do you like this place?" And, again before Pete could reply, "Me, I like it fine. Only trouble is, the Spaceport brought too many outsiders. Y'know, I was just a kid, but I c'n remember the days of the old proving grounds an' the early rockets. We come a long way, don't you think?" "Yes," Pete agreed.

" 'Course, a flight out to Mars or some such place is just a bit of routine nowadays, but still . . ."

"Have you ever been out there?" Pete wanted to know.

"Me? Son, you're lookin' at the wrong turnkey! 'Cept for a trip to Las Vegas once, I never left New Mexico. This is a right nice stretch of Earth we have here; I ain't seen no need to leave it."

Pause. Then, "Son, did you hear something?"

Pete listened. "Why, yes! Yes, I did. Sort of like a hissing sound."

"That's what I meant!" the turnkey shouted triumphantly. "First I thought my ears were playing tricks. They do that now an' again, y'know. But you heard it too."

It came again, a slow hissing, like air escaping from a leak in an inflated balloon.

"You feel all right, son?"

"Yes. At least, I think so. I'm a little tired." Pete stretched languidly, found himself yawning.

"Me too. Funny, 'cause I had plenty of sleep last night. Guess I'm getting old." The old man staggered off down the corridor. "Think I'll turn on the phonograph. Music's liable to keep me awake."

Soon the music was blaring forth, an old record, very tinny. Pete yawned again, blinked his eyes. He stretched out on his bunk, was dimly aware of the turnkey stumbling back toward his cell.

"Didn't help, I'm afraid. More tired than ever . . ."

With an effort, Pete opened his eyes. The turnkey had fallen to the floor, was breathing regularly. As if from far away, the music ebbed and flowed in Pete's ear. Something had happened to the old phonograph; the needle was stuck—

De de dum—de dc dum—de de dum—

Pete heard footsteps in the corridor outside. He wanted to open his eyes again, wanted to see who was approaching. But his lids were like lead. He heard voices talking in a great empty gulf, heard the loud jingling of keys. With much squeaking of hinges, the cell door opened. But by that time Pete was fast asleep. . . .

Night at a small airfield outside White Sands. A big jet-plane idled near by. Toward it walked a good-looking man in a neat business suit, an older man, gnarled, with a craggy face, a powerful, stocky man, a tall, impossibly thin man. The stocky man carried something over his shoulder. It was a sack, almost shapeless, but it could have held a human form within it.

The gnarled man with the craggy face talked to an official of the small airport, gave him a large sum

of money. Then, together with his three companions and their mysterious bundle, he entered the jet-plane.

Soon it had roared across the landing strip, its jets flashing fire. In another moment it soared up into the inky sky and streaked away toward the southern horizon.

Several miles below and behind the plane, an alarm siren shrilled its message at the White Sands prison.

Beyond the Land of Fire

D

ETE awoke to the hissing, and it took him a while to realize it was not the same sound which had put him asleep. This noise he knew—the release of oxygen in a pressurized cabin. "Ah! I see you're awake." "Mr. Fairchild!"

"Don't be surprised. You'll know us all," Mr. Fair-child assured him. "Sleeping inside are Sam Smith and Clarence Roth, whom you've met. That figure huddled uncertainly over the controls is your friend Ganymede Gus. You see, you are among friends."

Pete looked around at the curving walls of the cabin. "Don't tell me we're in space?"

"Hardly, young man. We're flying south at the speed of sound, at an elevation of forty thousand feet. Gus!"

"Yeah, boss?"

"Where are we now, Gus?"

"Well, near as I can make out from the instruments, we're just about over the Equator. Four, five hours to go before we reach Ushuaia."

"Ushuaia?" Pete asked. "Where's that?"

Mr. Fairchild smiled. "That will come later. I'm sure you have some other questions first."

"As a matter of fact, yes. How did I get out of jail?"

"That's easy. We released a harmless gas into the White Sands jailhouse. It's harmless, yes, but it quite effectively puts people to sleep. The rest was simple. Sam has broad shoulders and strong muscles; Sam carried you out."

"I didn't want to escape!" Pete stormed. "That makes me a fugitive. I was ready to face whatever they had in store for me, but all you'll do is make it worse. Why can't you guys mind your own business?"

"Peter! This is our business. That is precisely why we released you. In the first place, under persuasion of the authorities, you might have decided to say certain things which would have been infinitely embarrassing for us. You can't deny the logic of that."

"I won't try. But don't tell me you're going to all this trouble, taking me some place south of the Equator, just to make sure I won't talk. It doesn't make sense and you know it."

"Indeed I do. I have a logical mind, my boy, and, as you indicate, that would not be particularly logical. No, we're going south for another purpose entirely."

"What's that?"

"I didn't say I was ready to tell you. But why not? After all, you'll be a part of it, an important part as you shall presently see. First, however, let me thank you for the latest orbit information you relayed to us."

"Don't thank me," Pete said coldly. "I changed that orbit and made sure it wouldn't do you any good."

Mr. Fairchild shook his head sadly. "That is most unfortunate. It still seems, then, that we cannot altogether trust you. However, it didn't matter. As things turned out, we had no time to use the information you gave us. But what you say is irksome—does it mean we'll have to keep you in sight at all times?"

"You can figure that one out!"

"I'm happy to say it isn't necessary. And please don't play the bitter, misunderstood individual, Peter. It doesn't fit your personality at all. I can see you doing big things, great things, not sniveling off in a corner and crying that no one understands you."

"The only trouble with that is your idea of great things doesn't match mine, or anyone else's."

"Never mind. You've indicated confusion as to why we head south. When you consider it logically, the answer is quite simple. Our endeavors must of necessity have two phases, and the first one you have already seen. By one means or another we have managed to hijack half a dozen spaceships in the last six months. Had we been permitted to continue our operations, you could have been of considerable help. But it occurred to me that we had not yet reaped the benefits of what we had done. Therefore, this trip south."

"I don't get it."

"Several pirate vessels are waiting out in space with—ah, confiscated merchandise. Presently, they are hiding in the asteroids, but that can't go on forever. Further, we receive no profits unless those ships are brought to Earth, unless we can sell our produce.

"Hence this trip south. Today Earth is a civilized planet, Peter. Man's culture has reached everywhere.

It has pushed back the final barriers; it has claimed the African jungle, irrigated the great Sahara and Gobi Deserts, swept into the vast Brazilian wilderness known as the Matto Grosso. One area alone remains unclaimed, one place on all the Earth where a man can operate in comparative secrecy. Do you know what that place is, Peter?"

"Why, I suppose it's the Antarctic continent!"

"Precisely! We can call our ships back to Earth and bring them down in Antarctica. After that, a slow trickle of goods north will assure us a steady profit, and before too long we'll be ready for new trade. Meanwhile, we must first conclude the second phase of our operations. Namely, we must call the pirate vessels to an Antarctic rendezvous with us.

"And that is where you come in. Currently, it is winter in the Southern Hemisphere. Late winter, to be sure, but at best, the Antarctic continent will have only a few hours of twilight each day. Fierce blizzards will hide the sky, visual landings will be all but impossible. As an orbiteer, you are a radar expert. Very well, you shall guide our ships into base by radar."

"But you can't bring ships down at the bottom of the world in winter!" Pete protested.

"Yes, you can, provided you take the proper precautions. We have a base ready for us several hundred miles from the South Pole, complete with every radar device you can use, Peter. It will be a dangerous job, but it can be done. Consider it as a challenge if you like. But one way or another, you will do it!"

"Rio!" Ganymede Gus called back from his controls. "According to the instruments, we're over Rio now."

"Good." Mr. Fairchild rubbed his hands together. "It won't be long before we land at Ushuaia. We buy the clothing we'll need; we refuel; and then we're off for Antarctica."

In spite of himself, Pete was interested. By now he had resigned himself—he couldn't go to space. But Mr. Fairchild was right: Earth's civilization had pushed back all the frontiers, with one exception. Antarctica. There a wild, unknown wilderness still held man out, still kept its icebound secrets. They were traveling into the unknown, and in a way, it was like blasting off for the far planets. . . .

"What's this Ushua ..." Pete wanted to know.

"Ushuaia? That's the southernmost capital in the world, Peter. It's the capital and only real city of Tierra del Fuego. Do you know Spanish?"

"A little."

"Tierra del Fuego is an Argentine province, and its name means 'Land of Fire.' Though why they call it 'Land of Fire' when it's a frigid, frozen little island-that I cannot understand."

"I can," Pete told him. "We studied that in geography. Tierra del Fuego gets its name because of the southern aurora, the 'fire in the sky.'"

"Could be," Mr. Fairchild nodded. "However, I'm inclined to think it's wishful thinking on the part of the Indians who live there and must suffer with the intense cold."

#       O      9        *        *

Hours later, Ganymede Gus brought their jet-plane down to a bumpy landing at Ushuaia's one airport. It was tricky going, for the field was covered with ice and high-piled drifts of snow, and a blinding blizzard howled in from the south.

Here stood Tierra del Fuego, last outpost of land in the southern ocean short of the Antarctic continent itself. And here the Indians lived tunelessly in their mean hovels of ice and wood and frozen clay. You could almost sense the proximity of Antarctica, although actually thousands of miles of winter-gray ocean separated it from Tierra del Fuego. But civilization had made only small inroads. Oil lamps flickered and pulsed in the gloom outside; what looked like obsolete, propeller-type aircraft were covered by shrouds of canvas and snow; several dim figures bundled in thick, ancient furs struggled through the storm toward their jet-plane.

Eagerly, Ganymede Gus opened the door, but a blast of frigid wind hurled him stumbling across the cabin. A gust of wind caught the door and threw it out all the way, banging it furiously against the fuselage.

"Close that!" Mr. Fairchild roared over the wind. "We'll freeze!"

The three fur-bundled figures tumbled inside the ship while Pete leaned out into the cold with Gus and pulled the door back against the power of the wind. After a few moments they had it shut again, and soon the plane's power plant had restored a snug warmth to the cabin.

"That's much better," Mr. Fairchild observed. "Now, do any of you men speak English?"

"English, yes!" one of the fur-bundled figures cried, throwing his hood back and letting it fall on his shoulders. The man looked like an Eskimo, Pete thought— but since this was the far south and not the north, he was an Indian of Tierra del Fuego.

"Must talk English today," he said, grinning broadly. "All over world people must talk English to do business with men who travel. Speak English dandy."

"Fine," Mr. Fairchild muttered, while the two other Indians stared fascinated at the complicated control board. "My name is Fairchild. I believe we are expected."

"Sure, kid," said the Indian, bowing profusely. He did it all quite seriously. Evidently he thought the word "kid" signified someone of high esteem.

"We'll need fuel," Mr. Fairchild continued, "for which we'll pay you, and we'll need some of those light arctic suits, you know, the insulated kind that weigh only a couple of pounds."

"Don't understand."

"Clothing—for cold weather. We're going south." "South? Bad. Very cold."

"We know that; that is why we want insulated clothing."

"Fur coat?" the Indian demanded brightly. "No! Insulated, insulated!"

"No understand. Only thing for warm here is fur coat. You crazy to go south."

Pete said, "Probably, they don't have that insulated stuff down here, Mr. Fairchild. You'll have to settle for furs."

"But they're not so good! They weigh more, maybe five times as much, and they don't keep you as warm."

"That or nothing," Pete persisted.

"Well, I suppose you're right. We could have stopped for proper equipment back in the States, except that we were in a hurry to get you out of the country, Peter. Fur coats, then." He turned to the Indian. "We'll need five outfits, complete with boots, snowshoes, everything. All right?"

"Sure, kid."

"And we'll need food concentrates, vitamin and mineral capsules, H and K-bars—" "Don't understand."

"Oh, Lord!" Mr. Fairchild moaned. "They don't have that, either. We'll need food. You know—eat, eat! For many months."

"Oh, food! Dried blubber, smoked whale steak, walrus liver, dried beefsteak from Pampas—"

"Beefsteak?" Pete grinned wryly. "What's that?"

"No like beef? Well, walrus steak good instead—"

"Never mind," Mr. Fairchild groaned. "Bring it all, anything you think is good. How soon can we have all of it?"

"What you want again, please?"

"Fuel, enough to fill our tanks and then enough to fill them again. Food, for many months. Everything you don't need here we'll take. And clothing—complete winter outfits for five."

"What about the crews of the spaceships that'll be coming in?" Ganymede Gus demanded.

"Don't worry about them. They'll have their space-suits, and that's probably the best outfit you can wear down here, anyway. Now," Mr. Fairchild turned back to the Indian, "when can you have that?"

"Soon. Very soon. Two week all right?"

"Two weeks? That's ridiculous!"

Smiling, the Indian shrugged. "We are on, what you say, vacation. No work ten day, two week."

"Please! I'll pay you well."

The Indian nodded. "Wage terrible. You pay, we work. Two hour fine?"

"Fine," said Mr. Fairchild wearily.

Once more, Gus threw the door open into the teeth of the storm. Muttering cheerfully among themselves, the three Indians pushed their way out into the blizzard. Gus pulled the door in against the wind, slammed it, said, "Beautiful place, Ushuaia! And the spacemen think they have it rough."

"Wait till you see Antarctica," Mr. Fairchild predicted.

Two hours later, the Indians returned, pulling a long sled across the snow. With it they stopped a few feet from the ship, and after Gus had opened the door, they slowly set about transferring the supplies within the cabin. It was a long process, and by the time they finished, Pete was shivering with the cold.

Mr. Fairchild began checking over the items. "Five hoods, five fur coats, knee length, five pairs of fur leggings, five pairs of boots and snowshoes—ah! the boots are interlined with fur—fur mittens, a sort of fur vest you wear under the coat, I guess, and—will you look at this food!"

Wrapped in paper, frozen with the cold, pale gray strips of dried and smoked meat were heaped about in profusion. A large sack of coffee beans had been included, and thoughtfully, some hard biscuits and cans of frozen orange juice.

"There sure is enough of it!" Gus exclaimed. "I guess it will last, provided we do .. ."

Sam Smith had been quiet throughout the length of their journey. Pete guessed that he did not relish the idea of going south—all the way south. . . . Now the huge-muscled man grumbled, "What about water? We'll need water."

Gus began to laugh. Soon he was laughing so hard that he had to hold his hands to his sides. "Water!" he roared. "He says we'll need water."

"What Gus means," Mr. Fairchild explained patiently, "is that the Antarctic continent is covered with hundreds of feet of ice and snow. Perfectly clean, Sam; probably the cleanest water supply in the world. All we'll have to do is melt it."

"I got another question," Sam insisted. "Don't tell me we'll have to live in these fur things all the time? It's so cold down there from what I hear, we'll still freeze."

"Don't you worry about it, Sam," said Mr. Fairchild. "As I've indicated, a base is waiting for us. When the explorers visited Antarctica back in the fifties and sixties, they left underground camps. Well, not underground, really, but under ice. They hewed the camp sites out of the ice itself, reinforcing their below-level vaults with wooden beams. If we're lucky, we might even find some food stored there.

"Further, an advanced party of our associates has already brought in radar equipment, although I imagine that by now they've left. We know the latitude and longitude, however, and there'll be markers."

"Well. . ." Plainly, Sam was still doubtful.

The Indians had finished their work, and now the leader prodded Mr. Fairchild's shoulder. "You pay friends, they be happy and go."

"Of course."

"But no pay me, kid. Pay me later. I no like work here—no work to do. Wage low like mad. You take me with you, pay later. South cold and bad. I help make it good."

Mr. Fairchild stroked his clean-shaven chin thoughtfully. "Why not? Why not? Yes, I suppose he could be of some help. Very well, you'll come with us."

The Indian grinned happily. "I ready right now. You call me Ushuaia Joe."

"All right, Joe. Give this money to your friends and tell them to make tracks," Ganymede Gus said as Mr. Fairchild counted out the bills. "We'll need plenty of room for our take-off."

Pocketing their money, the two other Indians departed, and as he closed the door, Pete could see them hustling their sled away through the snow.

Ushuaia Joe said, "Big wind and snow bad for takeoff." He grunted. "Even worse for fly south."

"Leave that to us," Mr. Fairchild told him. "We'll climb to forty thousand feet and leave that storm far below us."

And then Ganymede Gus was at the controls and they all fastened their safety belts. Its jets belching flame and fury, the plane rocketed skyward. It gained altitude rapidly, and when Pete looked down through the window, Ushuaia and its airfield was lost under a swirling blanket of wind-driven snow.

Moments later, they had climbed above the storm altogether. Below them, the snow looked like a solid wall of white, and above, the aurora clashed and darted in silent thunder, piercing the skies with the mysterious fire that gave Tierra del Fuego its name.

Then they were heading south, ever south, with nothing to see but the impenetrable white barrier beneath them and an occasional flash from the aurora. There was nothing to say. They sat silently while time fled by, their ship roaring on above the fierce, cold winter at the bottom of the world.

Hours later, Gus said, "I think we've arrived!" And soon after diat Pete could feel the pressure mounting in his ears as the ship was brought down.

"Thirty thousand feet!" Gus cried. Then—"Twenty!"

Suddenly, the storm was all about them, blinding, spinning the plane this way and that, throwing them about helplessly in its cabin.

"Ten thousand feet!" Gus called. "I can't see anything. Air speed, four hundred miles per hour."

"Slow us down!" cried Mr. Fairchild. "You can't land at that speed."

"I'm trying .. ."

"Bad," said Ushuaia Joe.

"Five thousand feet!"

"What speed?"

"Two hundred, but the wind's got us ..

"Cut your jets, man! Cut your jets!" Pete cried. "It's the only chance. Cut your jets and turn us into the wind to slow us. Then switch them on again."

Gus obeyed, and the droning of the engine stopped. The pressurized cabin effectively sealed off all sounds of the storm, and they tumbled along through a ghostly white silence.

Gus was amazed. "The wind got us, and it's carrying us up again. Sixty-five hundred feet—"

"What's your speed?"

"Uh—one-forty!"

"Still no good," Pete told him. "We've got snow-runners around the wheels, but we'll skid and crash at that speed."

"One-ten!"

"That's better, but better check your radar. Maybe the ground isn't flat below us—"

"Hey, get us out of this," Sam Smith wailed, and Clarence Roth was mumbling to himself off in a corner of the cabin.

After a time, Gus said, "Radar's bad. Crags and peaks and outcroppings of ice below us. But we're going down—into the wind, which makes our ground speed only forty-eight miles per hour. Elevation, three thousand feet."

"Put on your jets!" Pete yelled.

From the front of the ship, there was a coughing sound, once, and then again.

"They won't kick over!" Gus cried. "They won't..."

"They've got to!" Pete fought his way forward as the plane was rocked and buffeted by the winds.

"Elevation, two thousand, ground speed the same as before. We're going to crash!"

Chapter 12

The Last Frontier

XCEPT for Pete, no one seemed ready for any decisive action, except, of all people, Ushuaia Joe. As Pete made his way forward, he found Sam and Clarence Roth in his way, jostling each other about in frightened confusion. Pete had no time to fight his way through, and he looked ahead of him helplessly to the controls.

But somehow, Ushuaia Joe was at his side. Using his arms as flails, the Indian of Tierra del Fuego swept the two men aside, and Pete flung himself down the length of the cabin. Joe was there again, heaving Ganymede Gus bodily from the pilot chair.

Pete sat down—with only seconds left to act.

He kicked at the jet pedal, heard the motors cough in protest. Frozen? If they were frozen .. .

He kicked again. The engines sputtered, coughed, kicked over! Pete pulled the stick all the way back, saw the angry little pips flashing on the radar screen. They'd skimmed something, a jagged cliff of ice, probably, by not more than fifty feet.

Landing by radar can be a ticklish business. You

can't see anything, which is the reason why you use radar in the first place. Instead, radar sends out its light-fast energy to substitute for your eyes. The beam hits something and bounces back, and you know that something's been hit at such-and-such a distance.

And with that as a guide, you try to bring down a big jet-plane through an Antarctic blizzard. . . .

Pete began to sweat. His first impulse was to look through the pilot window to try to see something other than the swirling storm. But he fought it down, and forced his eyes to remain on the radar screen with its little pips. He played the controls delicately with his fingers.

Down there? No! Radar warning—something high and uneven. There? No, the same. But according to the directional computer, latitude and longitude were right on the nose. The base should be directly below, and near it a long stretch of flat ice. There! Flat and long enough. Now bring her around slowly, into the wind. Don't nose down, for you won't get another chance. Closer, closer—

Something touched. The plane bumped, bounced, rocked from side to side. Pete cut the jets and they were gliding across the ice like a silent ghost. Something threw Pete forward and his head struck the control panel sharply. He felt himself falling, and someone, possibly Ushuaia Joe, eased him to the floor just before he blacked out.

"You feeling better?" Ganymede Gus's voice sounded fuzzy around the edges.

"I've got a headache," Pete mumbled, trying to sit up. He couldn't make it.

"Well, just relax a while. You brought us down safely, and that's enough till you feel better. Near as I can figure it, sonny, we plowed into a snowbank. No damage, thanks to you."

"You see," Mr. Fairchild said smugly, "I knew we would need Peter with us."

Ushuaia Joe then soaked a rag in some of the water left aboard ship, and bathed Pete's head with it. Strength flowed back quickly after that. Before long, Pete was on his feet again.

"All right," said Mr. Fairchild, "the sooner we find our base the better I'll like it. Let's get into our furs."

Sam Smith spread out the heap of fur garments, and everyone donned them. Their boots were spiked for travel over ice. They strapped their snowshoes to their backs, and also piled their food and supplies on their backs. Each one bundled into a shapeless mass, they headed for the door.

Gus opened it, hopped outside and fastened it back against the hull while the blizzard whipped in at them. One by one, they stepped out on the ice of Antarctica.

"You can't see much through this storm!" Gus roared over the keening wail of the wind.

Mr. Fairchild shook his fur-hooded head. "We don't have to. They set a pole over the base, painted it with a mildly radioactive substance. We should see its glow."

They looked in all directions, holding on to one another with mittened hands. If a man got separated from the rest by as much as twenty yards in this blizzard, he might be lost forever. Pete had never felt such cold. It knifed in almost at once, numbing in its intensity. It stung, it blinded, it brought tears and froze them before they could roll down their cheeks.

Ushuaia Joe's sharp eyes caught the glow first. "Light," he said. "That way." He pointed.

And then they all saw it, faintly—the smallest suggestion of a glow cutting through the frozen gloom. "That should be it!" Mr. Fairchild yelled triumphantly, stalking out over the ice.

They followed him in single file, still gripping hands tightly. It was late winter, and a vague twilight suffused the air and the wind-driven snow. The sun had worked its way close to the horizon, but it would not rise for several weeks. Thus Pete knew they could expect some twenty hours of total darkness for each four of half-light.

The glow grew brighter.

It took shape in the dusky light, became a long needle of metal pointing up at the heavy sky. They reached it, circled it excitedly.

They dumped their packs of equipment on the ice. Sam Smith and Clarence Roth each hefted a pickax; Joe and Gus dug into their supplies and came up with shovels.

The pickaxes swung up and then down, cracking and splintering the ice with every blow, and the shovels scooped away the debris. Soon Pete relieved a panting and thoroughly exhausted Ganymede Gus. Moments later, Sam and Clarence rested over their handles, too tired to continue. But a tireless Ushuaia

Joe took Sam's pickax from him and continued to hack away at the stubborn ice while Pete wielded his shovel.

"I strike wood!" Joe called, after what seemed an endless time to Pete.

After that, the Indian had to be careful. A trapdoor of thick wood was buried under the ice, and he did not want to damage it with his pickax. He probed around it carefully while Pete scraped and chopped at the ice with the edge of his shovel.

Finally, the door was exposed, black and somber against the ice. Pete found a ring on one side, pulled at it experimentally. Nothing happened.

"Icebound." Mr. Fairchild's teeth chattered as he spoke. Activity had warmed Pete, however, had even brought a warming perspiration to his skin. But that could be dangerous—once it started to freeze.

He tugged again at the metal ring, heard something scrape, felt it give a little; but the trapdoor held fast. Ushuaia Joe joined him, and together they pulled.

The scraping again, and—

Pete was thrown .flat on his back when the door finally came up all the way. He looked at Ushuaia Joe stretched out near him on the ice, and they began to laugh. But they sobered quickly after that, as they began to follow Mr. Fairchild through the trapdoor and down a flight of wooden stairs. Everything was cold and damp and dark as blackest night.

Ganymede Gus explored the space with his flashlight, found a light switch, snapped it on. Pete saw comfortable living quarters, with a radar screen and powerful radio transmitter off to one side. A hall led out to a large bunk room, a kitchen, a bathroom.

"All the comforts of home," Clarence Roth murmured. He hardly ever spoke, but when he did, he regretted it—which was the reason for his usual silence.

"Ain't that nice," Sam's booming voice almost purred. "Clare thinks we'll have all the comforts—"

"Don't call me that!"

"Shut up, both of you!" Mr. Fairchild snapped irritably. "We have enough on our hands without you two arguing all the time. First, we'll have to set this camp up, and that will take some effort. After that, I'll radio our ships in space, one at a time. When they come in, Pete'Il guide them down with radar. Won't you, Peter?"

Pete did not answer. Instead, he found the heating unit, activated it. He crossed back to the trapdoor, saw that someone had shut it. He climbed halfway up the stairs, felt heat in the ceiling, heat which would keep the door from freezing over again until they would have time to build an igloo of ice blocks over it.

After that, they all were busy. It took them three days to set up camp and another two to cut blocks of ice and construct an igloo over the trapdoor.

One night after they had made the igloo, Pete found Mr. Fairchild bending over the radio transmitter. "F, calling Ship One. F, calling ship—go ahead, Ship One."

Of course, he could not expect an answer at once. Radio, like light, was the fastest thing in the universe-each traveling at better than 186,000 miles per second. But that incredible speed still meant that ten or twelve minutes must elapse before Mr. Fairchild's message reached the asteroid belt, and another ten or twelve minutes for a return message, if any.

Mr. Fairchild leaned back, lit a cigarette and purled thoughtfully. "I've never asked you, Peter. You will bring those ships in for us, won't you?"

"Why should I aid an illegal enterprise?"

"Why? Because there's money in it for you, that's why."

"I don't want your money, I don't want any part of it. You brought me down here against my will, and I helped set up the camp because all our lives were at stake if I didn't. But that's all. I don't see why I should bring your ships in."

"Then I'll tell you why. Once I call those ships to Earth, there will be no turning back. They won't have enough fuel to leave this planet again, and landing any place else would mean prison. In that case, they'd try to come down whether you helped them or not. Without you at the radar screen it would be suicide, and you know it. Would you like to send all those men to their deaths?"

"It wasn't my idea in the first place," Pete said. But he was fencing meaninglessly, and he knew it. He would have no choice except to bring in the ships.

"You'll do it," Mr. Fairchild informed him.

Pete nodded glumly. "I'll do it."

Less than a half-hour later, a voice came in through the receiver, clearing Earth's Heaviside layer with a lot of static. "Ship One to F! We heard you, F! Lord, man, where were you? We've been hiding out here in the asteroids until we all have grown beards. We thought you'd been caught or something, and it's been touch and go all the way, because those new graduate Cadets are patroling the swarm as if it was their back yard. They'd find us sooner or later, unless—tell me, F, can we get out of here? Where do we go? Over, F, Over."

Mr. Fairchild smiled, flicked the switch over to sending. "You return to Earth," he ordered. "We'll wait for you on the Antarctic Continent, and I want you to let me know at once when you can make it to the following south-polar coordinates—"

"He talking far?" Ushuaia Joe demanded.

Pete nodded. "Very far, Joe."

The answer came, half an hour later: "Wonderful, F! We're starting at once, naturally. Give us exactly twenty days and we'll float in over your heads. That's all, F. We're signing off and rocketing in!"

"You see," Mr. Fairchild explained, "the authorities will never find us here in Antarctica. It's Earth's final frontier, and except for a base at Little America some five hundred miles northeast of our present position, it's deserted. Our plane will be icebound until summer, but by that time we should be able to blast it clear and start bringing goods north. We'll let the ice bury the spaceships completely, so if anyone on the hijacked ships got a good look at them, they'll never be traced. Small loss, with millions of dollars in cargo coming in."

"All obtained illegally!" Pete raged.

"Peter, please. There is business and business—and who is to draw the line between shrewd manipulation and out-and-out stealing?"

"There are laws for that! The Government has been able to draw that line for hundreds of years, and the vast majority of people like it."

"I do believe you're an idealist."

"Maybe I am. I only know that if everyone thought as you do, we couldn't have any civilization at all. I only know . . ."

The radio was buzzing again. "F! Hello, F. Boss, we've been spotted. I think they beamed onto our radio or something. Anyway, there's a patrol ship closing in. Just a small one, boss, but I think it can outrun us. You want us to rocket away or fight? Over, F."

"Fight!" Mr. Fairchild fairly screamed into his transmitter. "You have no choice, not if you think they can outrun you. Disable them at the very least, but fight. They must not be able to follow. You have long-range blasters on your ship, and I doubt if a small patrol scout vessel could match them. You are to fight! That is all."

Then, to Pete: "Carelessness! They can spoil everything if they're caught—"

"So you're willing to have them murder anyone in that patrol ship! That does it, Mr. Fairchild—I won't bring that ship in for you if it gets here."

The bleak depths of deep space. On the fringe of the asteroid belt, two hundred million miles from Earth. Two graduate Cadets in their small cruiser.

"That's ridiculous," Roger Gorham insisted. "Part of a radio message, unscrambled at the last minute, so you figure it's the pirates."

Garr nodded his head stubbornly. "I didn't insist, Roger. I'm not sure. But on the other hand, we're not turning back until we find out."

"Aw, you're as bad as Pete. You're acting just as if this were a game of cops-and-robbers. Because of that, we have to go rocketing out at full speed, and I thought we'd be able to rest today."

"I didn't become a Cadet to rest! Pete sure wouldn't—"

"Pete! That's all I hear, Pete. But he's not here with you. I am."

"Well—hey! Hey, look ahead. See it?"

Roger frowned. "Of course I see it. A spaceship. So what? There's no law against taking a ship out here on the fringes of the asteroid belt."

"No, there isn't any law. But Ceres had no ship listed for this sector, and they wouldn't miss a big baby like that. Give them a signal and see if they answer it."

A few minutes later, Roger was still frowning. "They didn't answer, but they seem to be coming closer."

"Hold it!" Garr cried. "That ship is armed to the teeth." He set the controls on automatic, crossed the cabin to the port blaster. "I'm going to fire across their beam," he muttered, triggering the big space-cannon.

Together they watched the beam of raw energy streak out from their ship, saw it zoom off through space a mile ahead of the unknown vessel.

"Radio them again, Roger!"

Pause. "I did, Garr—and there's no answer. I—I'm scared."

Garr sat down at the controls again, turning the ship in a steep bank which threw Roger against the stanchions. "I think I'd better make it hard for them to hit us, in case that's their idea. I wish Pete were here— Roger!"

"W-what?"

"They're shooting at us!"

Roger saw it too. Three beams of energy roaring out at them across the void.

Garr slammed down on the controls, sent their ship rocketing away, preparing for a turn and a new approach.

"Call headquarters on Ceres!" he cried. "Give them our location and . . ."

Something jarred their ship, shook it. The lights blinked out, and a moment later Roger whimpered, "The radio d-doesn't work."

"Try it again!"

"It s-still d-doesn't work!"

Garr swore under his breath, stood up. "Neither do the controls. They must have got our main power line, Roger—hello! Look, they're going away. I guess they know they've disabled us."

"Can we get out of here?"

Garr shook his head. "I don't think so. We've got enough food, water and air, so we don't have to worry—"

"But what?"

"But well have to repair that radio fast, or our number's up. We're still moving, Roger, at ten miles a second. And we're heading straight into die thick of the asteroid belt." "Well, we should plow through it in a day or so—" "No. There are millions of particles in there—some pieces tiny, others miles in diameter. There's the most cockeyed, complicated gravitational field in the solar system. We'll plow in, and slow down. Gravity'll get us. First one hunk of rock, then another. Our speed forward will slow down to zero, but we'll bounce back

and forth between those hunks of stone until one decides to hold us permanently.

"Our only hope is to fix that radio fast and send out our position. But tell me, Roger, do you know any

prayers?"

"I — I —" Roger began to blubber. "Wait! There's the life-rocket."

"Only big enough for one," Garr muttered.

"Well, one of us could go out in it, reach Ceres and report the position of the other." Roger looked at Garr hopefully.

Garr snorted. That would help, of course. But if it had been Pete, if it had been anyone else, they would have tossed a coin. He knew, however, that Roger would be helpless alone in the derelict.

He looked up wearily. "You take the life-rocket and get out of here. Come on, scram before I change my mind! I'll stay with the ship."

Chapter 73 Escape'.

i R. FAIRCHILD still sat hunched over his radio, chain-n smoking. Finally, the signal came through again, yl and he listened eagerly.

■ "Hello, F! Ship One calling F. We engaged patrol cruiser successfully. She's disabled and plowing into the asteroid belt so fast she'll be mashed to a pulp. That's all, F—except that we're rocketing for Earth now. See you soon!"

Mr. Fairchild chuckled. "I knew they could do it, and the odds against another patrol ship picking them up are tremendous. All we'll have to do is wait."

"You can wait," Pete told him. "I'm getting out of here."

"You're what?"

"I said I'm getting out of here. That's murder, what your men did to the patrol ship. I want no part of it;"

"Is that so? Just how do you propose to get out of here?"

Pete shrugged. "I don't know. But I've had enough." "That's fine," Mr. Fairchild snickered. "So you're going to walk all the way to Little America. You real-

ize, of course, that the jet-plane is already icebound for the balance of the winter."

Pete frowned. "I hadn't thought of that," he admitted. But there was a way—there had to be a way! He couldn't stay here at the Antarctic base. The longer he remained, the more he'd be implicated. And more important than that, if he could somehow escape and reach the authorities, he'd put a stop to Mr. Fairchild's activities. One patrol ship had been hit, and from what he'd heard, it looked like sure death for its two-man crew. Idly he wondered if he knew them. It was barely possible that a graduate Cadet was involved. . . .

Pete waited until everyone had retired for the arbitrary night period. There was no night or day in Antarctica, and certainly no night and day in their under-ice camp, but the same eight hours out of each twenty-four they slept. Pete crept softly from his bunk, padded out into the hall. Beyond the bunk room was another door which he knew entered into a storeroom. Sam and Ushuaia Joe had placed their supplies inside, but Pete himself had never seen inside the room.

He found the door unlocked, pushed against it slowly, felt it give. Soon, flashlight in hand, he entered the place. He saw neat little mounds of food, saw the radar set disassembled against one wall. But what attracted his attention was a sled.

A jet-sled!

Apparently it had been left there by the explorers who had constructed the base years before. A large sled, easily big enough for two men and supplies; in a pinch it might even hold three. And the gleaming metal of the jet-tubes jutted out behind it. With that sled he could reach Little America, or at least he would have a good chance of doing so. But his enthusiasm quickly waned. The sled was aluminum, probably, quite light, but still it undoubtedly weighed two hundred pounds or more, including fuel. One man could not hope to carry it up to the surface. Two men might be able to, provided no one interfered with them. Even if Pete could enlist aid—which seemed more than doubtful—they'd have their hands full escaping themselves, not to mention taking the sled with them.

Not Sam, certainly. Not Clarence Roth. Ganymede Gus? Gus was a bitter ex-spaceman, but totally unpredictable. Ushuaia Joe?

Pete shrugged his shoulders. It was worth a try. He moved silently back through the hall, crept into the bunk room, found Joe's cot. He flashed his light in the Indian's eyes, and waited until Joe began to stir. Then he clamped his free hand over Joe's mouth motioning for silence. The Indian's eyes looked puzzled, but his head nodded. When Pete released him he grunted, shook his head to clear it of sleep, followed Pete outside as silently as the blackness all around them.

Together they entered the storeroom. Pete began at once:

"Why'd you come with us, Joe?" "Why? I bored, that's why." "Aren't you bored now?"

Joe grinned. "Yeah. Not much do here. Listen radio. Eat food. Sleep."

"Well, how would you like to go away from here, by jet-sled, to Little America."

"Young explorer make big joke. That dangerous trip."

"I know it's dangerous. I also know it's necessary. Listen, Joe, what do you think we're all doing down here?"

"Explore, like all others before—" "No. We're not explorers. Do you know about space-travel, Joe?"

The Indian seemed insulted. "Do I know? I got uncle colonist on Mars. He mine for silver, make good fortune, come back every year to Tierra del Fuego in rich coat to gloat. Sure I know space."

"All right. Do you know what a pirate is?"

"Pirate go in ship after other ship. Make boom-boom, take cargo."

"All right again, Joe. Well, our friends here are pirates. I've got to get to Little America, and then maybe far north to the United States, to report them. I want you to help me."

Ushuaia Joe's face was very solemn. He looked at Pete a long time without saying anything, and then he began to laugh softly, for apparently he did not want to disturb the sleepers, but his whole body rocked with mirth.

"What's so funny?" Pete demanded.

And Joe said, "Nothing. Don't mind me, Hodges. I merely thought I was hopelessly trapped with you pirates down here, and now I find someone's on my side."

"What? Huh? What happened to your pidgin-English?"

"It was a sham, but thank the Lord I can forget about it for a while."

Pete could hardly believe his ears. "I don't get it. Does that mean you're not an Indian?"

"Let me answer your question with one of my own: do you think this is the eighteenth century or something? Most Indians are civilized now, you know."

"Then—then what does all this add up to?"

"Simple. I'm an Indian, name of Ushuaia Joe, or Joe Cloud, or Joe Dawson. I answer to all of them. But I'm also a United States Government agent."

"What?"

"You heard me. Antarctica is the last frontier, Hodges. We have to keep it covered at all times. I live in Tierra del Fuego, and it's my job to come down here with any expedition that doesn't look on the up-and-up. You know they might want to do some illegal mining or something like that. Nine times out of ten it turns out to be a false alarm. But this time—I heard that radio conversation, Hodges. I also did some exploring down here. There's a jet-sled, but it would take two to handle it—"

"That's exactly what I was thinking!"

"Okay. If we can get out of here on that sled, Fair-child and the others will be trapped. They won't have any way of getting out at all, not until late spring, and by then they'll be on their way to jail, anyway. How does it sound?"

"It's still exactly what I was thinking," Pete told him. "Only catch is, we're liable to have some trouble getting that sled upstairs with all the equipment we'll need."

Joe shrugged. "You want to do something and there are ways. Don't get me wrong, I'm just talking off the top of my head now, but there's a lock on that bunk-room door. If we can get all of them, or most of them, inside, we can probably bring the sled upstairs before they can hammer their way out."

Pete nodded eagerly. "Why not?" he demanded."Why not?"

Joe was laughing softly. "How do you feel about it right now?" "Why—fine!"

"Well, I don't want to rush you or anything, but they're all asleep inside. All we have to do is lock the door and beat it..."

They had been whispering, and when they suddenly heard a loud voice, it startled them both. Sam Smith stood in the doorway, a blaster in his hand,

"Ain't that nice," he said. "Ain't that just dandy!" Joe started toward him, cat-quick.

"No—keep back! That's right, friend. Don't take another step. As for you, Petey-boy, I'm surprised at you. I thought you was one of the crew."

Tears of rage and frustration welled up in Pete's eyes. If only he could wipe that insolent leer off Sam's face. Trouble was, every time it looked as if he could extricate himself from this mess, he only succeeded in digging himself in a little deeper. The way things shaped up now, it could go on indefinitely, for once the pirate ships came to Earth he'd have no choice but to help them land.

". . . lucky I'm a restless sleeper," Sam was saying. "And you guys whisper like a couple of bullfrogs arguing. I think we'll step inside to the bunk room and let everyone know what you was thinking."

He waved his blaster, prodded them ahead of him through the hallway. Soon they stood in the large bunk room, and Sam walked around for a moment.

After everyone was awake, after Mr. Fairchild lighted his inevitable cigarette, Sam quickly related all that had happened. No embroidery. Merely the facts. But that was enough.

Mr. Fairchild dropped his glowing cigarette to the floor, stamped it out with a slippered foot. "How sneaking can they get?" he wanted to know. "The Government, I mean. Sending an agent along as an uneducated native of Tierra del Fuego. A man can t trust his best friend—"

"You wouldn't trust your best friend anyway," Joe told him bitterly. "The only reason you trusted me was because you were fooled completely. Does that answer your question about the Government? With men like you around, it's a necessary thing."

"He even yaps like a Government pamphlet," Sam sneered. "Boss, I could take them upstairs and let them see how it's like to live in Antarctica."

"Die, you mean!" cried Ganymede Gus. "No, I can't let you do that. I may have been responsible for a lot of shady things in my time, but never any killing. You're not going to kill anyone now."

Mr. Fairchild smiled. "Who said anything about killing? Sam here has an overripe imagination. Don't you realize that we need Pete, as much as ever? As for Mr. Ushuaia Joe, if you kill a Government man you'll have every law-enforcing agency on the planet after you. But that poses a problem. It certainly does. If we ever let this Indian go, he'll lead the police right to us."

"In that case," Clarence suggested, still rubbing sleep from his eyes, "we'll have to .. ."

"Hey, listen, everybody!" Sam chortled. "Clare has an idea!"

"Aw, lay off! I was only—and don't you call me that!"

Mr. Fairchild shook his head. "Stop your bickering and let me do the thinking. I don't pay you two for that. At any rate, what we'll have to do is this: we'll have to arrange an accident for Mr. Ushuaia Joe, but I fear that will come much later, when we're back in civilization and people can see that accident. Meanwhile, we'll have to watch Joe, and Peter too. Remember, I don't want anything to happen to Peter. We need him. He can still cooperate, or we can make him do what we want, but one way or the other we need him.

"Now," Mr. Fairchild yawned, "I'm going to sleep."

Gus muttered, "I think I'm sorry I ever got into this. I was a spaceman once, and a pretty good one, too. The life of the race they called me and my kind. But look at me now. Just look at me."

"You're being melodramatic," Mr. Fairchild told him. "I'm sure you'll get over it in the morning. Anyway, Gus, you and I can get some sleep, but I want Sam and Clarence to keep an eye on these two. Suppose you take them into the storeroom and watch them there."

"Well," Sam growled, "I'm kind of sleepy." "You'll get a chance to sleep later. Take them inside."

Still growling, Sam led Pete and the Indian back to the storeroom. Wordlessly, Clarence followed them.

*       «       ss       a       *

An hour fled. Two. It was not particularly warm, but Pete began to sweat. If they didn't act soon, they'd never get the chance. Once the pirate ships came in, things would become too complicated. They would not have two guards at any given time. They might have a dozen.

At first Sam and Clarence sat on packing cases, and Sam drew out a grubby pack of cards. They started to play Venus rummy. But Sam soon tired of it, stretched his long, muscular arms, leaned back against the wall. Before long he was snoring regularly. The sound must have made Clarence restless, for he began to fidget.

Clarence lit a cigarette, snuffed it out, lit another one. Pete and Ushuaia Joe were silent, utterly silent. Clarence got up, paced back and forth. Finally, he snapped:

"Say something, will you? That guy's snoring can drive you crazy!" Clarence took out a handkerchief and began to polish the barrel of his blaster.

Joe shrugged. "What do you want us to talk about, Clare?"

"Clare! Don't call me that. Only Sam, Sam's the only one that does it. But no one else, see? I can't help it if my mother named me Clarence."

A thug with an inferiority complex, Pete thought idly.

"A tough egg like you should have changed your name, Clare," Joe persisted. "Hey, cut it out!"

"You asked me to talk, Clare. I'm talking. Clare" Without warning, Clarence hit him, hard stinging blows with his open palm. Then he quickly jumped

back, gripping his blaster nervously. "Lay off," he pleaded.

Joe tch-tch'd before speaking. "I thought a big boy like you could hit much harder than that, Clare." "Shut up!"

"Relax, Clare. You'll wake Sam. Then he'll be real angry and he'll call you Clare, Clare."

As if in response to that, Sam grunted, shook himself. But he turned his head to the wall and soon he was snoring again.

"See, he's asleep!" Clarence cried.

"He won't stay asleep if you keep yelling like that, Clare."

Pete had been too deep in thought until now to realize what the Government agent was attempting. But now he said, "I'll bet you're sleepy too, Clare."

"Naw, I—stop that! Don't call me that."

"Clare, shh!" Smiling, Joe raised a finger to his lips for silence. "Go ahead. Show us what a big, tough thug you are by hitting me again while you have a blaster in your hand—Clare."

"I'm warning you. My name is Clarence. C-l-a-r—"

"What? No nickname? Well, Clare will do."

"Stop it!" And Clarence took two quick steps toward him, lifted his blaster high overhead and brought it down. Usuaia Joe was quicker.

He brought his hands up, grabbing Clarence's wrist. Startled, the thug began to struggle, but in another moment the blaster clattered to the floor. Joe's hand clamped over Clarence's mouth and his screams were muffled.

The commotion had disturbed Sam's sleep and he shook himself like a big jungle animal. He got to his feet groggily, took the situation in with one glance and darted toward the struggling figures.

Pete scooped the blaster off the floor and waved him back. "Keep out of it," he said, then turned halfway to face the writhing, kicking Clarence. "That's enough, Clare. It's all right, Joe, you can release him. If either one of them makes a sound, this blaster goes off." Pete almost smiled when he said that. He did not quite know if he meant it or not. He didn't think he could bring himself to shoot anyone, but neither Sam nor Clarence would know that.

Clarence stood in a corner, panting. But Sam was still cocky. "Okay, so you have the blaster. Only what are you going to do now?"

"See that sled?" Ushuaia Joe asked. "We're not going to do anything. But you and Clare are going to take that sled through the hall, and you're going to carry it upstairs for us. Now."

The jet-sled was heavy, and Sam grumbled as he lifted one end of it. Clarence did not make a sound as he lifted the other. Joe climbed into a fur coat, boots, a hood. Then he took the blaster from Pete. Soon they both were bundled in winter garments.

"Ready?" Joe demanded.

Pete nodded.

"All right, you two. Let's move."

Struggling with the heavy sled, Sam and Clarence got as far as the bunk room door. Sam, who was in front, paused. The hallway was narrow, and with Clarence and the sled in front of them, Pete and his companion could only urge Sam on with hoarse whispers.

"I'm going," he responded. "I'm—heck, I'm sorry!"

It was as simple as that. He dropped the sled.

It bounced off the wall, slammed against the door, crashed to the floor. The noise might not be enough to awaken the dead, Pete realized, but it would be more than sufficient to awaken Mr. Fairchild. . . .

He came through the door almost at once, another blaster in his hands. "What's going on? Where do you think you're taking that sled? What—oh!"

He'd seen Pete and Joe. "I can't even get some sleep," he said, "without trouble. I don't want to sound trite, Mr. Ushuaia Joe, but how does the old expression go: drop that gun? Drop it!"

Joe looked at Pete. Pete looked back at Joe, shrugged helplessly. Mayhem wasn't their idea. They wanted out in the worst sort of way, but mayhem wouldn't be the answer. If they wanted to, they could fall down behind the sled and start blasting, but it would be far from pretty in the narrow confines of that hallway. Explosive pellets would ricochet off the walls, turning the place into a slaughterhouse.

Ushuaia Joe dropped his blaster to the floor.

Clarence worked his way back along the edge of the sled to retrieve it, as Mr. Fairchild said:

"Peter we still need, although I suspect the boy will never learn. Joe, however, is a different case. Joe's useful qualities were doubtful at best, and now they have vanished completely. We have no choice but to eliminate him."

"Let me," Clarence suggested hopefully, still working his way back to the blaster.

"Well, I suppose—"

But Mr. Fairchild did not finish. Something leaped on his back, brought him down to the floor. Ganymede Gus!

The two of them rolled over against the side of the sled, grappled there. Gus was shouting almost hysterically as they fought. "I heard what you said about murder. That's enough for me! Maybe for the last twenty years I've been wrong. I don't know. But I'm not going to be wrong any more. No sir, not me! I was —proud once—and I—had a—right to be. Me, a spaceman. The life of the race, like I said. Then I guess—I— kind of — degenerated, but now — I've learned — my lesson."

They fought for the blaster as he spoke, but Mr. Fairchild still held it, forced it slowly in toward Gus, forced it closer. .. .

Pete dove for the other weapon, hit Clarence with his shoulder and saw him tumble away. Then Pete scrambled to his feet, blaster in his hand.

"Break it up!" he cried. "Stop it—"

He was too late.

A muffled explosion came from the other side of the sled, and Ganymede Gus moaned once, then fell over on his back. Pete reached them an instant later, climbing over the sled. He wrenched the gun from Mr. Fairchild's fingers, and bent down over Gus.

"I tried to show you how a—spaceman—should act, sonny—"

A moment later, Ganymede Gus was dead.

Over and over again, "He's dead." Pete kept on saying it. He did not know why. "He's dead—"

Joe told him, "I think he died as he wanted to, Pete. For twenty years he'd gone the wrong way, and he finally found his chance to strike a blow against evil. I'm not a religious man, Pete. But maybe God will see it that way."

"They killed him—"

Joe placed a big hand on his shoulder. "I know how you feel. You get to see a lot of that in my business and you never like it. Some men are that way, Pete, living by violence. And life just isn't what it should be for them, for guys like Mr. Fairchild. He can kill without compunction. But don't get this wrong: don't say what so many people do. It wasn't because society did not understand him. No, it was the other way around. He couldn't get along with society. The world is a wonderful place, Pete, if you can obey a few simple rules of decency. But I guess Mr. Fairchild wouldn't understand."

"Our Indian is a philosopher too," Mr. Fairchild sneered.

Ushuaia Joe shrugged. "We'd better get going, Pete. We won't have to take these three with us, because our underground retreat here is better than any prison. They'll just stay put until the police can come in after them."

It was a long and difficult job, but Sam and Clarence attached some stout ropes to the sled and, using the top rung of the ladder as a fulcrum, got it up through the trapdoor. Then, for what seemed an endless time, Pete hacked away at the ice with a pickax. Cold winds howled across the frozen tundra; snow fell in swirling gusts.

"I think it's deep enough," Joe told him.

Gently, they lowered Ganymede Gus's body into the deep trench, shoveling ice over it. It was not in any way a casual grave, Pete realized as he fashioned a crude cross out of two slats of wood. The Antarctic ice was permanent, eternal—and Gus could rest eternally with it.

Pete hardly realized he was saying it, but he heard his own voice hollowly, as if from far away. "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: ... he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul."

And then it was over. The group stood with bowed heads and lodged the cross firmly in the cairn of ice. They went down below once more, searched for weapons, found none. When the police came, they would be met with no resistance-Joe then began to work over the sled. Before long, the jets commenced their throbbing, and soon the fiery exhaust thundered out over the ice. Pete brought up a last carton of supplies, strapped it down under a canvas cover, then climbed aboard.

The jets roared as they streaked away from the underground camp. But louder and stronger was the roaring of the blizzard.

It would be a long, hard road to Little America, but they were on their way. . . .

Chapter 14 White Sands Again

HOLD. Utterly unlike any cold Pete had ever before experienced.

■ It was cold beyond chilling, cold beyond freez-J ing, almost cold beyond numbing. It was the kind of cold that, paradoxically, burns. Too much of it and too intense to freeze the extremities first, it hit the whole body at once, and fur garments seemed no more effective than would sheerest silk.

The speedometer needle did a crazy jig as the sled bounced and jumped over the icy terrain. Give or take ten, the needle hovered at the 90 miles per hour mark. Pete was strapped up in a sitting position, and with every jolt the thick leather belt cut cruelly into his frozen body. He knew he'd be black and blue by the time they reached Little America. If they reached Little America-There was no time for talking, no strength for talking. The sky covered everything like a thick leaden shroud, the tundra bounced and rocked on all sides of them, barely visible through the twilight gloom. Pete lost all track of time. There was nothing but

the cold and the howling wind and the leaden sky spilling out its snow. The snowflakes did not fall; they never merely fell on the Antarctic continent. Caught up by the fierce wind, they spun and swirled and whipped down, each soft flake a stinging needle. Pete sensed that hours had passed, but it could have been days or weeks or infinity.

Hadn't he spent all his life just like that, tumbling along through the snow? He'd never known anything else. There was nothing else to know. The world consisted of the wind and the snow and the cold and the endless need to stay awake.

To stay awake—that was the worst part of it. He wanted to sleep; the cold drove all but that desire from his mind. Yet sleep would slow the bodily functions and the cold would encroach. If he slept, if even he allowed himself to catnap, there would be no waking.

Ever.

Still, he felt himself drifting. His eyes blinked shut, and it suddenly became an effort to raise the lids again. A cloud drifted over his mind and squatted there. The storm noises receded off to the horizon of consciousness, crouching there, waiting for him to sleep before they swept in permanently over him.

He wanted to talk, for that might keep him awake. But then the blizzard howled back and he could not even hear his own voice. He wondered dimly if Ushuaia Joe were fighting the same battle. All he could see ahead of him was the Indian's broad, fur-garbed back. He could not tell if Joe were awake; he did not even have the strength to lean forward against the cutting pressure of his safety belt and prod the man.

On they sped and on, but the journey was completely without meaning. Even the cold ceased to exist. All that remained was the desire to sleep, and the conflicting desire to remain awake—and alive.

Maybe if he thought... it didn't matter what; any thoughts would do. If he could only keep his mind occupied. But what was there to think about? His brain felt impossibly sluggish. Multiplication table? Run it through. Two times two is four times two is eight times two is sixteen times two is thirty-two times two is sixty-four times two—No, that was no good. The monotony of it made him drift, drift. . . .

There was the time, an age ago, when he first saw the spaceships thundering off into the sky, when he was a little boy of three and Big Pete assured him—or was he four?—anyway, Big Pete assured him that the spaceships were not ablaze, despite the pillars of flame that supported them. He had vowed right there and then to go to space with a burning pillar of flame and fury behind him and weave his ring of fire around all the distant stars.

Or later, when he was older and could understand, they received the news of his brother's death two hundred million miles away, and Big Pete said nothing, absolutely nothing. He just sat there. He sat there for a long time and he said nothing about it; he never mentioned it at all and that was worse. He went out early, though, and took Pete by the hand and watched the ships blasting off. Maybe he saw Jerry's face in every shining hull, or maybe he saw nothing but the wonders of space and knew that Jerry had died happily, as a man should die. . . .

Or the time he first met Garr MacDc-ugal when Garr came to the Academy with his gangling limbs and his freckles and admitted with a blush that he'd never even seen a spaceship. He'd just heard an awful lot about them, so he wanted to see them first-hand, despite the fact that his family did not understand why a boy would want to go to the moon or beyond, or any place at all.

Or the times at the Academy when the spacemen would come and visit their old rooms, and maybe if you were real nice they would stop and talk to you about the hothouse that was Venus or the seas of lunar pumice or the ageless ochre sands of Mars and the mysteries that lay buried beneath their shifting surface, or the spinning chaotic asteroids or the dome-cities on far Jupiter's moons.

That was it! Think, think, think, and drive the cold and the sleep away. Drive away? Drive what away? Drive....

"Pete! Pete!"

A hand on his shoulder, shaking him. And something stinging his face, hard, yet living. Another hand, slapping him.

"Out of it, Pete! Up, boy, up!"

"Huh? J-Joe—I'm all right. I'm up. I'm—"

"We're out of fuel. We coasted to a stop, and when I unbuckled myself and turned around, you were asleep. I couldn't turn around otherwise, and if our fuel lasted, I don't think you'd have made it to Little America alive."

Joe was shouting to be heard, but the motion of their sled had kicked up a man-sized gale by itself, and now that they had stopped, talking could be heard over the storm.

"How far are we from Little America?" Pete asked.

"I don't know, not exactly. But we've been moving for almost five hours and we've been going in the right direction, too. I don't think it can be more than a couple of miles, Pete. But that's liable to be the toughest part of our trip, because we're going to have to make it on foot."

Pete did not reply. He was very tired and very cold, and he sat quite still while Joe reached down for their supplies to get some food. He lighted their portable stove—a can of stored heat, actually — and soon had some dried beef thawing out in melted snow. The snow, now water, began to boil, and a delicious aroma came from the little pot. Pete found a fork in his hand, without remembering when he reached for it, and soon he was eating, and the meat was hot and the liquid scalding, and he let these burn his mouth and his throat, and he felt much better.

"The longer we sit here the longer it's going to take," Joe finally said. "I don't like the idea of walking off into that storm any better than you do, Pete. But what do you say?"

For answer, Pete stood up, stepped away from the small circle of warmth which came from their stove. The cold tried to chase him back, but he set his eyes resolutely away from the shimmering waves of heat as he said, "Okay. What are we waiting for?"

The first mile wasn't so bad. It took more than an hour, for fresh drifts of snow were soft and deceptive, and often Pete found himself in knee-deep before he realized what had happened. But the cold did not assert itself the way it had on the sled, and they pumped their legs up and down and did not think of sleep.

The second mile was worse. They fought the wind all the way, and although they trudged slowly through the snow, they panted as if they had been running-only it was a lot harder than running.

"Pete?"

"What?"

"How do you feel?" "Tired."

"Umm-mm. Me too. If we don't reach it soon—"

"We'll reach it. We have to."

Ushuaia Joe fell down suddenly, sprawled full length in the snow. It seemed a long time before he could pick himself up, and when he did he said not a word. He kept right on walking into the teeth of the wind, and Pete walked with him.

Endlessly.

It was Pete who saw it first, or thought he saw it. Something just over the horizon, which seemed to stay there no matter how far they walked.

Something.

A light?

It spread out in front of them, and square shapes,

which might have been low buildings, loomed up out

of the murk. Little America? Civilization's outpost on

the fringes of the Antarctic continent_____

Pete was running, shouting, waving his hands, stumbling, then running again. His breath came in ragged, burning gasps. His eyes clouded.

He fell, saw Joe down in the snow beside him, clawing at it, too weak to rise. But he too was shouting, and their voices were a hoarse roaring not unlike the sounds of the storm. The buildings were close, so close-Did he see figures scurrying out from the nearest one, heading for them? Did he? Then he saw nothing. . . .

"Easy now. Don't try to sit up."

"I—won't." It was a voice he had heard, but only a voice, without the shrieking wind as a background. A pleasant warmth blanketed him.

"Exposure out there could be a nasty business. Here, drink this."

Something propped his head up; something else prodded his lips and he drank. The liquid was hot and he rolled it around in his mouth and felt its wonderful heat before he swallowed it. He opened his eyes, saw a white-walled room, a chair, a bureau. He was on a bed and he saw an electric light glowing pleasantly overhead. A smiling man, portly and middle-aged, held a cup to his lips.

"Where's Joe?"

"Joe? You mean your companion? He's in another room, right next door. This isn't much of a hospital, son, but it's the best we can do. We run the weather station here at Little America, and it's lucky one of you had a brass-lined throat. I think we heard your shouting even before we saw you!"

"How long have we been here, sir?"

"Two days. Name's Jenkins, son." The man tamped tobacco into a corncob pipe, lighted it. "But don't ask me why I'm down here. Six months of it and we're relieved, and if wc handle ourselves all right in Little

America, the next stop is the moon or some place else like that. Good training. Say, I'm a big dope! Are you strong enough to talk—or to listen to me gab my head off like this?"

Pete nodded eagerly. "Sure." Then he smiled. "Long as you don't make me get up and go outside again."

"Well, okay. I've got a question. What were you two doing out there?"

"It's a long story. I think you'd better get it from Joe, because he's a Government agent of the United States. You American?"

"Yep. There aren't many exchange students for Little America, son! I guess they figure we can have it. But a Government agent, huh? Anything important?"

Pete nodded. "We'll have to leave here as soon as we can. Say, do you have a plane, Mr. Jenkins?"

"What for? We can't take any sight-seeing tours down here. But seriously, a jet comes in once a week from Tierra del Fuego. Should be along in three days, near as I can figure it."

"Will they have room for us?"

"I expect so, provided you're ready to travel. Excuse me, son. I'm going in to take a look at your friend."

Ceres Base, in the asteroids, was a large dome-city on Ceres, the largest planetoid of them all. Actually, the Solar Patrol base there was a huge, glorified lighthouse which charted courses above and below the Belt for freighters and passenger liners. Once in a long while and for very special circumstances, a course might be plotted through the fringes of the Belt itself, but that was only when speed seemed imperative, and even then it was regarded as a highly dangerous journey.

The dome itself was of thick, tough quartzite in three layers, and because it was not uncommon for a stray meteor to blast a jagged hole in the outermost one, crews of space-suited figures could be seen scurrying all over it with their repair kits. Below the dome was pressure and an Earth atmosphere and a good-sized city.

Ships came in through an air lock atop the dome, and within the past fifteen minutes Roger Gorham had come down in his battered life-rocket. Now he stood, fidgeting, in the commanding officer's quarters, and Colonel Tomilson was speaking:

"So one of you managed to get out of that wreck, eh? Frankly, that's more than we could have hoped for. We've been following the ship by radar, and it's in a lot of trouble. The thick of the swarm, Cadet Gorham. We don't hold out much hope for rescuing your friend."

"I'm sony to hear that," Roger said stiffly.

"So am I. What's your friend's name—MacDougal? Well, he's in for it. He's in the deepest part of the Belt right now, and it will be impossible to get a ship through to him for—umm-mm—six weeks. By then, the chances are a hundred to one it will be too late.

"It might happen today; it might happen in a month. MacDougal has enough air and plenty of food from what you tell me, but he can't fight that swarm with a derelict ship. Six weeks from now, and section seventeen—that's where he is now, section seventeen—in six weeks, that section will thin out some, but until then it would be suicide for anyone to go in after him. A rescue ship would have to plot its own orbit as it went along, with changes necessary every few seconds. It would be murder.

"It won't be quite so bad in six weeks, as I've said, but even then I'll have to ask for volunteers. I wouldn't order any man out there, although I daresay there have been several volunteers already. Well, in six weeks, but it will be a miracle if MacDougal's ship hasn't fallen to pieces by then. A meteor half the size of this room would do it, and a smaller one could be just as bad. A speck the size of a pea could penetrate the hull and get rid of all his air, unless MacDougal wears his space-suit all the time.

"We're trying to contact him by radio, so we can at least tell him that. So far, no answer. Could be that he's already dead—"

"No," said Roger. "Our radio conked out when we were hit, but MacDougal didn't think it was hopeless, sir. He's trying to repair it."

"We'll keep a twenty-four-hour watch, of course. If he does repair it, we'll radio him instructions, though a lot of good that will do. I wish I had those pirates here, right now. I'd—never mind, Gorham! You're excused."

"Yes, sir," and Roger saluted smartly before he left the room.

For a long time Colonel Tomilson stared from his window, stared up past the transparent dome and into the black sky above it, studded with the thousand-thousand tiny specks which made up the Belt. "That poor kid," he said. "That poor kid. . . ."

«       0       «        «       o

Joe and Pete left Little America. The supply plane had taken them to Tierra del Fuego, where it was snowing, but it was nothing like the storm on the Antarctic continent. There they changed to a private plane which, in a few hours, had deposited them in Buenos Aires. Ushuaia Joe had made his report, and now he stood talking with Pete in the United States Government Liaison Building.

"I guess that clears up the mess for us, Pete. They're getting an armed expedition ready. In two, three days it'll leave for Antarctica, and inside of a week they'll have Fairchild and his playmates in custody. It still leaves a lot to do—they'll have to round up the pirate sabotage ships and things like that, but it shouldn't take long.

"As for you, well, your story checks with the little they knew, so you're cleared of everything as far as we're concerned."

Pete nodded. "Everything's straightened out for me, except for the local police in White Sands. I was involved in a sort of involuntary jailbreak up there, and that will need some explaining."

Joe smiled. "You know, you were flirting with criminal actions yourself all along, but you just did stay on the side of the law. Except for some sabotage; but since it kept a spaceship out of pirate hands, I don't think they'll hold that against you. I guess you learned your lesson, though. There are authorities for things like this, Pete. When something happens, you report to them. You don't waste any time about it, because you can get into a lot of hot water if you do.

"Hey! It's late. Your plane leaves for the U.S. in half an hour. We'd better grab a taxi and get on over to the airport."

Soon after that, they solemnly shook hands, and Pete climbed the gangplank into the waiting jet-liner. He'd always remember Ushuaia Joe, although he would not remember him the way he last saw him—in a double-breasted overcoat, with polished shoes and a slouch hat. No, Ushuaia Joe was a man in furs, an Indian, someone who managed to survive in Tierra del Fuego and in Antarctica too, because he belonged on the frontier.

Several hours later, Pete stepped out of the jet-plane in White Sands. It was autumn in the Northern Hemisphere, and now, just before twilight, a cool breeze stirred in restlessly from the north. Not that it ever became really cold in New Mexico—but then, what would be cold after Antarctica?

Whistling to himself, Pete took the commuters' bus, got off in his old neighborhood. He walked along smiling, and people looked at him quecrly on the street. He knew he should have called his folks to inform them of his coming, but somehow he thought they'd enjoy it better this way. And he would, too.

By the time he spotted the neat, whitewashed fence a block ahead of him in the gathering dusk, he was running, and breathlessly he pushed the gate in and ran up the walk. He climbed the three steps to the porch, realizing idly that the glider would need a paint-job soon. And then he rang the bell.

Four or five seconds passed, then, from within the house, he heard footsteps. A slow, heavy tread. Big Pete!

The door swung in, and his father stood there looking at him, tall and handsome, distinguished, his hair graying at the temples. At first there was no expression on his face, none whatever—but after a moment, he began to smile. He was smiling all the way across, from ear to ear, and Pete was smiling too.

"Son! You were gone. We didn't know what—"

"I'm home to stay, Pop!"

"Come inside. Come inside. Mother! Mother—you're in for a shock. Look who's here . . ."

His mother came down the stairs from the second floor. She hugged him and held him against her until Big Pete cleared his throat. "Pete must be tired," he said, "and he'll have a lot to tell us, so if you can get your hands off him long enough for him to go upstairs to get washed—"

And then they all were laughing—they laughed and joked and talked all the way through dinner about little things. Sometimes they just sat and looked at one another.

Afterwards, Mrs. Hodges was busy with the dishes in the kitchen, and Pete had promised to help her dry them, but Big Pete, who wasn't laughing any longer, led him into the living room.

"It's a shame about your friend Garr," he said abruptly.

"Garr? What about Garr?"

"Didn't you know? There was a patrol ship disabled by some pirates. I read it in the paper—"

"Yeah," Pete said. "I knew about it when it hap

pened. I'll tell you everything later. But what about Garr?" He did not know why, but he could feel his heart beginning to race. He was frightened; he was afraid to hear Big Pete go on with it.

"Garr was aboard that ship. He's still on it. But now it's a derelict out in the asteroids. I don't have to tell you what that means, son."

"Garr! Garr on that ship? Pop, it's all my fault!"

Chapter 15 Balked!

ON'T you see," Pete said again, after he had told his father everything that had happened, "it's all my fault!"

Big Pete's answer was a tired smile. "That's quite a story you tell. Taken down to the bottom of the world by a bunch of pirates, but thanks to your Indian friend, you managed to get out of it okay. Wait, let me finish. You've been through enough to hold a man for a lifetime, and I mean that. So the result is that you're all keyed up, and you're blaming yourself for something which..."

"It is my fault!" Pete cut in bitterly. "If I hadn't gone down there with them, they would not have risked bringing their ships in. I was the one who could get them down safely, don't you see? Because I was there they could try it, and because they tried it, Garr's on a derelict ship in the Swarm."

Big Pete shook his head firmly. "You're forgetting one thing. Even if what you say is true, still it wasn't your idea to go down there. They forced you. They drugged you, took you against your will to Antarctica."

"That doesn't matter. It's my fault."

"You need some sleep, son. And after that you need a good long rest. Then we can talk about this again."

"No!" Pete cried. "There isn't time. Are they doing anything for Garr?"

Big Pete shrugged. "What can they do?"

"Well, they can send out an expedition."

"In the Swarm? Now? It would be suicide. The papers say they'll have to wait six weeks, until the Swarm thins out. The asteroid belt revolves around the sun; you know that. But it doesn't revolve in one continual stream, and at times sections of it thin out. In six weeks section 17—Garr's section—will thin out. But meanwhile, a ship trying to get through to him would be like a man trying to walk through a storm without being touched by a single raindrop, when the touch of a raindrop is death. No, Pete. They'll have to wait."

"Well, what about Garr? He's out there without the power to move, and your raindrops are falling all around him."

"I know how you feel, Pete. But there isn't a thing that can be done."

"That's where you're wrong," Pete told his father slowly. "Something can be done. Someone can take a ship out to the asteroids and rescue Garr."

"The Patrol has forbidden it until six weeks have passed."

"Still, someone can do it. It would have to be someone who can plot orbits in his head as he goes along, someone who can keep one eye on the radar screen and the other on his orbit. It would have to be me!"

In the morning, Pete went with his father to the police station. By that time, reports were trickling in from South America, and the officer in charge was more than willing to let Pete retain his freedom. He did suggest, however, that Pete remain in town until the whole business was straightened out.

After that, a happy Big Pete excused himself and went about his affairs for the day. Pete strolled aimlessly down toward the Spaceport, not knowing what to do. Garr had to be rescued, and Pete, with his ability to plot quick orbits, thought he could do it. But the Patrol had placed a sanction on all such attempts, and, what was worse, Pete could not take a ship up anyway. He was earthbound. . . .

Someone had to rescue Garr! Someone—and the more he thought about it, the more Pete knew he was that person.

He remembered the tower quite well. As he entered, a uniformed guard with a vaguely familiar face smiled a greeting at him. He took the elevator up to the top level, found himself confronted by a receptionist that he did not remember.

"Yes, sir?" die woman demanded.

"I—I'd like to see Captain Saunders."

"He's an extremely busy man. Have you an appointment?"

"No. But tell him Pete Hodges is here. I think he'll see me."

The woman spoke briefly into a machine on her desk, then smiled up at him. "Through that door, sir."

And a moment later: "Pete! It sure is good to see you."

"Hello, Captain Saunders."

"Reports are coming in from Buenos Aires and Tierra del Fuego, telling how you set the stage for capturing those pirates. Pete, I've got to hand it to you; you had us all fooled. Sit down, son, sit down."

"Thank you."

"If you'd like your old job back, it's still waiting for you."

"I didn't come here for that."

"No? What then?"

"You remember Garr MacDougal?"

"Yes, of course. A shame about Garr—"

"It's only a shame if no one does anything about it!" Pete cried. "I think I can get through to him, Captain Saunders. I know I'd like to try."

"You think what?"

"That I can get through to him."

"How?"

"You know the way I plot orbits. It should give me more than a fighting chance."

"The Patrol says no, Pete. No one can try. Not for six weeks."

"I know that. But everyone, including the Patrol, realizes that Garr won't have a chance to stay alive out there for six weeks. It's a miracle if he's lasted this long."

"So you want to try?"

"Yes."

"You can't. It's against orders."

"I said I know that," Pete insisted. "But one scout ship, just a small one, that's all you have to risk. And one man. Me."

"Even if I wanted to, I don't have the authority."

"Forget it this one time. Let me go. Please."

"You're earthbound, Pete. Don't forget that part of it either. You couldn't take a ship up even if it had nothing to do with the asteroids."

"Well, I could go as a passenger! I could plot orbits for the pilot."

Captain Saunders shook his head. "In that case, it would be two men, not one. Also, if that collarbone of yours is rebroken, your pilot would be helpless."

"That wasn't my idea, sir. I really wanted to go myself. I can do the job myself. I know I can."

"I'm sorry, Pete. No. I can't give you clearance. I'd like to, but I can't."

"Then send me to someone who can."

"No matter whom you saw, the answer would be the same."

"Send me to someone."

"Who? The Officer of Operations here at White Sands? It won't do any good; but all right, Pete, I'll give you a note to him. Don't say I didn't warn you."

The Officer of Operations was a white-haired old man, small and thin, with a gaunt face carved from granite and flat, yellow-brown eyes. He leaned his elbows on a big desk, made a bridge of his hands and peered over it while Pete related his story. When he spoke, his voice had a thin, rasping sound:

"No."

"Just like that? No?" "That's right. No."

"But sir—"

"I can sympathize with you, Mr. Hodges. But no."

"Sir, I think it's my right, since I got him into this in the first place—"

"Debatable. Can't jeopardize the ship. Or you. Can't disobey orders. No."

"Whom can I see? I mean, I'd like to go above your head, sir."

"Do that. Try anyone. See the President. It would not help."

"If you could give me a memo to an officer above you, I'd be able to see him. Anyone—"

"No. Waste of time. His time too. Good day, young man."

The Officer of Operations thumbed rapidly through some papers on his desk, but did not look up again. He failed to stir when Pete shut the door behind him with a loud bang.

The Commander of Rocketry, Southwestern United States Division, was next. You did not merely walk in on the Commander of Rocketry. You saw a secretary who suggested another secretary who steered you to a junior liaison officer who shifted you to a public-relations officer who thought the whole thing might be bad for publicity—and then you tried all over again.

You returned to the first secretary who suggested another one, who gave you a lecture on how busy the Commander of Rocketry, Southwestern United States Division, was. All the while, with each hour that passed, you knew that Garr's plight kept growing worse.

Radio reports reached Earth hourly. The story was packed with human interest—a Cadet on his first mission of any importance trapped on an asteroid derelict. The disabled ship had stopped its aimless wanderings. It had plowed into a dumbbell-shaped asteroid several hundred yards across. It had nosed into the thin, barlike extension between two roughly circular chunks of rock. It would remain there until other asteroids streaking along through the void came and pulverized it. The two circular chunks of rock would offer some protection for a time, but eventually the inevitable would happen. No one in a position of any authority thought that Garr could survive the six necessary weeks, and it was even doubted that anyone could reach him after that time.

"I'd like to see the Commander of Rocketry."

"You said that yesterday. And the day before."

"Please, Miss. It's important."

"I know it's important. It's always important. But you'll have to make an appointment like everyone else. I can get you through to his adjutant officer the latter part of next week. Shall I put you down? Name, please?"

"No. The latter part of next week will be too late. His adjutant won't do any good."

"I'm sorry, sir." Completely impersonal, but it was the thing to say.

After that, Pete gave it up as hopeless. He could not see the Commander of Rocketry, not in time. But actually, he knew it wouldn't help if he did. He'd get the same answer as the Officer of Operations had given him, the same as Captain Saunders', without the friendly touch.

No one understood—

"I've been meaning to talk with you, son," Big Pete said that night. "You can't go on like this, hardly sleeping, eating very little, seeing a lot of people and getting nowhere."

"I can't help it!"

"I know you can't. I didn't ask you to. You're off on the wrong track, son, that's all. You see all these stuffed shirts; they don't help you. Why go on seeing them?"

"I agree with you. I've already decided that. But what can I do?"

"If you want to do something hard enough, you'll do it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to push you into this. Space knows that your mother and I are happy enough just having you home with us again. But it looks as if you've made up your mind. Want some advice?"

"Yes."

"Forget about the authorities, because in this matter they won't help you." "But I-"

"I know, that confuses you. You learned the hard way, that you should go to the authorities when you're in trouble. Because you didn't, you wound up in Antarctica, and you almost didn't come back. But it works both ways, Pete. There are times when a man has to fend for himself, completely. When he knows he's right, when everyone else seems pitted against him, but when he still knows, deep down inside, that he's right—and when he's thought about it a long time and still knows that, then he has to fend for himself.

"I'm not going to tell you what to do. I'm not even going to suggest that you do anything. I think I'd rather you didn't. But that's your choice, not mine. And before you do anything, remember this: the doctors don't think your collarbone can take acceleration. They could be wrong; but more often than not they know what they're talking about. Also, your brother died in the asteroids, son. He'd have been a Captain now, but the asteroids—"

Big Pete always choked up when he spoke of that, and it was only with an effort that he continued. "Anyway, all that is on the negative side of the ledger. But you want to do something about it. You won't be able to live normally until you've tried to rescue Garr. Is that right?"

"Yes."

"I don't know if you're right or wrong, son. Only God knows that. But I do know that if you have that feeling and if nothing can shake it from you, you'll have to try."

"That's what I've been doing, only it got me no place."

"And you still want to try?" "Yes. Yes!"

"Then forget the authorities. Forget all about the red tape you'll have to go through. We're behind you, son, your mother and I, no matter what you decide to do. The rest is up to you—but I think you know you'll have to hurry."

Pete hardly slept that night. What was it his father had meant?

He could not go to the authorities, for they would be of no help. Then—what was the old expression? He must take die law into his own hands. But with everyone and everything against him, how could he get a ship?

Wherever he turned he was balked, but that did not matter. He must find a way. There had to be a way.

Every hour that passed was an hour more of danger for Garr. Every hour that passed made it more improbable that Garr could be reached in time. Pete thought of Garr out there in the immensity of space, helpless, gazing out at the bright, brittle pin points that were the stars and the brighter ones that were the asteroids all around him, and waiting for the one with his name on it to strike.

Garr-

After dinner, clouds scurried up from the west, and the rain beat dully on his window. For a long time Pete looked out into the sodden night. "Garr!" he cried and beat his fist impotently on the window sill.

He got up, dressed, walked outside into the wet night. He wore light clothing and the rain soaked through to his skin. He did not hurry, he had no place to go. For a long time he walked and presently he found himself back at the house again.

He opened the door quietly and went upstairs.

Garr couldn't take a walk like that. Garr could just sit in the tight confines of his spaceship and wait for death.

Tomorrow he would do something. He did not know what, but he would do something.

Chapter 16&\*«-om

N the morning, Captain Saunders seemed a little surprised to see him again. "Hello, Pete. Don't tell me you've had some luck?" Pete shook his head. "What do you think? No, I

guess I've been batting my head against a brick wall,

but I'm going to take you up on what you said." "Eh? What did I say?" "That I could have my old job back." "Ah-hl That's a lot more sensible, Pete. We can

always use a good orbiteer around the tower. When

do you want to start?" "Right now. This morning."

"Man, you are in a hurry! But I stopped looking gift horses in the mouth a long time ago. Fact of the matter is, Pete, we sure can use you. Yes, and right now, today. Some eighty graduate Cadets are pulling in today and tomorrow. They'll be taking two-seaters to the moon and back, and although those ships are small, there'll be a lot of orbit-plotting to do. I planned on doing all of it myself, because your replacement has his hands full figuring out a liner orbit for the

end of the week. Man, you can roll up your sleeves and get to work at once."

"Good," said Pete and hung his jacket in the closet.

"As you know," Captain Saunders said, "we can forget all about sunrise and sunset blast-offs when a hop to the moon is involved. We still use an ellipse, sure; but instead of being in the sun, one of its focal points coincides with the center of the Earth. And that means one time of day is as good as any other. I plan to get twenty ships up today, twenty tomorrow. Half-hour shifts, ten hours a day. I hope you got plenty of sleep last night."

"Enough," Pete told him, although, in truth, he'd hardly been able to sleep at all. Toward morning he'd dozed fitfully, but it had already begun to grow light, and he'd risen restlessly from bed just after sunrise.

He felt a growing eagerness, however. One of those forty small ships could supply his answer. There wouldn't be much more than enough fuel to reach the moon, true enough—and fuel capacity in those babies was strictly limited. But from the moon outward would be a different story, for, thanks to its lighter gravity, a spaceship could blast away from the moon with only a fraction of the fuel it used for Earth blast-off.

I've got to do this carefully, Pete thought. Logically.

1.   I somehow get control of one of those ships.

2.    I blast off for the moon with all the others.

3.       I somehow refuel on the moon and blast outward for the asteroids.

4.  I plot my own orbit as I go along, and I'm on my way.

Simple. One, two, three, four. Just like that. Except that getting the ship would be a problem in itself, and refueling on the moon might be even more difficult. . . .

". . . orbits," Captain Saunders was saying.

"Huh? I'm sorry, sir. I—I didn't hear you."

"I said, we'll be plotting economy-orbits. The less fuel employed, the better. Take a look outside, Pete."

Pete strode to the window, peered through it. The forty trim ships stood waiting on the runway. They were small enough to use the old portable blasting tanks instead of the larger, permanent pits, and each small ship was housed in its tank, prow pointing straight up into the air. "I thought those tanks were obsolete," Pete said.

"No, not obsolete. We rarely use them, but once in a while they come in handy. In the old days there was no such thing as a Spaceport, and also, the ships were much smaller, much like these two-man jobs outside. Thus, you could take off any place, provided you had a tank to suck in the heat and the radioactivity.

"But the tanks aren't obsolete. We use them every time a large number of tiny ships blast off. You figure it out—using forty blasting pits would scatter these ships over miles of runway. This way they're packed together and we can keep an eye on them. Anyway, what time have you got, Pete?"

"Oh-eight-hundred-and-five, sir."

"Well, at oh-eight-and-thirty we'll get started."

Pete nodded, reached into a drawer for scratch paper, a pencil, a slide rule, and the Manual of Lunar Orbits. With these, he sat down and got to work.

After that, it became a nerve-wracking routine. Nerve-wracking because each ship that lifted skyward meant one less chance for Pete. However, now at least, he could do nothing about it. The ships soared away at half-hour intervals, and he only had time between flights to prepare the next orbit.

"Are you ready? Are you ready, 14B-11?"

Then the eager voice of a Cadet about to leave Earth for the first time: "Y-yes, sir!" The voice sounded flat over the radio, but that failed to hide the eagerness.

"It is now ten-twenty eight-seventeen. One minute and forty-three seconds to blast off."

"Check, sir!"

"One minute."

"Check!"

"Thirty seconds."

"Ch-check!"

"You're away, 14B-11!" Then Pete would press the firing stud, watching the radioactive glow mount in one of the blasting tanks outside. Actually, for takeoff purposes, neither a tank nor a pit was necessary, provided you did not mind scorching the ground all around and spilling out a great deal of radioactive slag which could be dangerous.

In a moment, the little ship would rise slowly, gathering speed as it crept up into the sky. In a few seconds it would streak out of sight altogether, and Pete could imagine the two Cadets on their acceleration-cots, pressed down painfully under a force of more than five gravities. The speed of escape from Earth was in the neighborhood of seven and a half miles per second, and to attain that speed, acceleration had to be built up fast. The result was five gravities—and sometimes six—but the Cadets would hardly mind. They'd fight a few moments of terrible pain, yes; and they might even black out. But soon after that they would be in free-fall, coasting to the moon, and then they could unstrap themselves and look back at the great green globe of Earth looming up in the blackness behind them, and it would be worth it. . . . Another ship. And another.

Thirty left on the field. Time for a quick bite of lunch. And through the afternoon and early evening another ten. Twenty ships gone, twenty left. And still Pete had been able to do nothing—

"Good night, Pete."

"Good night, Captain Saunders."

"See you in the morning."

"Yeah, in the morning. . , ."

Sunset of the following day. A crimson glow brightened the western horizon, touched fingers of flame to the low-hanging cumulus clouds, swollen and puffy. But it faded, and with it, Pete's hope. . . .

Thirty-seven ships gone, only three remaining. He plotted the thirty-eighth orbit rapidly, had the ship all set to go a full fifteen minutes before blast-off time. It had to be now or never, for he realized he might not finish either of the remaining orbits so quickly.

That morning he had scrawled a quick note for Big Pete, had left it where his father would find it.

Pop: I've taken your advice. At least, I think I have. If all goes the way I plan it, I should be on my way by the time you read this. I think you know I had

to go. And I know no matter how much I say don't

worry you'll worry anyway—but don't! I remember all

my training; I haven't forgotten a thing. I'm going

to get Garr and I won't come back without him. That

doesn't mean I won't come back—it means I'll come

back with Garr.              Pete.

Now, in the tower, with fifteen minutes in which to act:

"Captain Saunders?" "Yes, Pete?"

"I've finished the next orbit. You can handle this baby yourself from here, can't you?" "Sure."

"Swell. Would you mind if I went outside and stretched my legs?"

"No, not at all. Go ahead, Pete. Probably you can use it, the way you've been bent over that desk all day. Why don't you hop down and say good-by to the boys in that ship; it will be the 7C-28."

"I might do that," Pete said. "I sure might."

He took the stairs two at a time, found himself outside with thirteen minutes remaining. The nose of the 7C-28 protruded from its blasting tank and Pete could see two figures climbing the metal rungs of the ladder on the side of the tank.

"Hello!" he called.

The figures paused, looked down at him. "What do you want?"

"You still have a few minutes. Why don't you come down and talk a little? I'm the guy in the tower who plotted your orbit."

One of the Cadets nodded, and in a moment they stood at Pete's side. "Say! I know you; you're Peter Hodges."

Pete nodded.

"We graduated a quarter after you did—that is, after you were supposed to. I recognized you from your picture in the papers. It's all over the place, the way you captured those pirates. Me, I'm Mike Donaldson. This is Harry Chambers."

"Hi, Mike. Harry." He shook hands with both of them.

Harry said, "Hey, I hope that was a good orbit you made. This is our first trip!"

"I know it," Pete told him. "And don't worry about the orbit."

Dusk had settled on the spacefield now, the last twilight afterglow was flickering faintly in the west. Seven minutes... .

"I didn't really capture those pirates," Pete said, trying to make talk. It was meaningless chatter, and he could feel the blood pounding wildly in his temples.

"No?"

"Uh-uh. Heck, I was lucky to get away from them, but that's a long story."

"Sorry we have no time for it," the Cadet named Mike told him. "But there's less than seven minutes—"

"Six minutes!" Harry cried excitedly. "So long, Hodges. Nice meeting you. Let's go, Mike."

"You're not going any place," Pete said quietly.

Pete knew he could not fight with both of them.

Even assuming he could win, there were less than six minutes to blast off. Still, he had to prevent the Cadets from boarding their ship, and he had to board it in their stead. Which meant he had to surprise one of them, and do a thorough job of it-He lashed out suddenly with his right fist, putting the full force of his body behind it, catching Harry Chambers squarely on the jaw. The Cadet was too surprised even to cry out. He stumbled back against the side of the tank, slid slowly to the ground and wound up flat on his back. He did not move. "Hey!" Mike Donaldson protested. "Hey!" And then the two were grappling. Pete fought with a blind fury; Garr's life might depend on the outcome. But the Cadet was angry. Bewildered, too, for the attack upon his comrade had been, as far as he could see, utterly unprovoked. Pete could imagine what he was thinking: here, on the eve of departure, some lunatic comes and . . .

They were down on the ground in the gathering darkness, rolling over and over, and now the Cadet was on top, pounding Pete's head against the concrete. Pete's vision swam. He thrashed about wildly, kicked up and over with his legs, flung the Cadet away.

Pete was on him in a moment. He could give no quarter. He did not like the idea at all, but he was not going to stop until the Cadet was unconscious. Anything short of that, and his last hope of reaching Garr would be gone.

He struck with his right hand, his left—his right again. The Cadet cried for him to stop. He almost did. He couldn't beat the Cadet into senselessness.

Couldn't he? He had to!

Finally, it was over. Shaking, Pete stood up and ran to the ladder. In a few seconds he had reached the top, had swung over from the tank wall to the air lock of the ship, had run inside.

He heard Captain Saunders' anxious voice over the radio. "7C-28, don't you hear me? Seven-C—"

"I hear you!" Pete called, panting. "Go ahead!" He strapped himself down on one of the acceleration-cots.

"One minute and fifty-three seconds to blast off!"

Pete had locked the door behind him. Thoughts chased each other rapidly through his head. If the Cadets regained consciousness, they might figure that the door was locked. They might run to the tower and try to stop him from that end.

"One minute and five!"

"All set, sir."

"Say! Don't I know you? Your voice is familiar—" "I doubt it," Pete said hastily, trying to pitch his

voice on a higher key. "I came into White Sands only

yesterday."

"Well, I don't know.. . . Fifty seconds." Then, Captain Saunders' voice came through much lower, as if he were turning away from his transmitter and talking to someone else in the tower. "Who are you? What? ... Is that so? Let me see your papers. Yes, yes, you do belong on the 7C-28.1 don't understand—"

Pete's heart did a mad flip-flop inside his chest. One or both of the Cadets had revived, and had stumbled up into the tower.

"Thirty seconds, 7C-28, but there seems to be some trouble."

"Thirty seconds, Captain Saunders," Pete called back clearly in his own voice.

"Yes, and—you know me, eh? Wait a minute!" "Wait nothing, sir."

"Twenty seconds—" Then, muffled: "Yes, I know your papers indicate you should be on that ship, but it seems to have an occupant. How do I know he doesn't belong there? If he doesn't blast off on schedule, we'll have to compute a new orbit. The moon doesn't hang out in space waiting for you. What? So we'll have an investigation. . . ." And louder: "Five seconds!"

"Ready."

"Four, three, two, one—good luck, Pete!"

He knows, Pete thought. He knows!

And then everything but agony was blotted from his mind. A loud roar swept in through his ears, grabbed his brain and held it. Something clutched at his stomach, too, constricting it. A giant hand slammed him back against the cot, driving all the breath from his lungs. He could almost feel his face twisting. . . .

It seemed interminable, the pain. Endless, and it grew worse. . . .

And then, incredibly, it was over. He hung suspended, his body pushing gently against the straps that held him. He was in free-flight, coasting out toward the moon.

He was in space!

Chapter 17 s.

T was as if all his life had been leading to this moment. Gray and green and streaked with brown, the Earth hung off in space behind him, beautiful beyond description, beautiful beyond all the tridimensional pictures he had seen at the Academy.

Ahead, the bleak speckled vault of space. Far away and off to the right he could see the cold white face of the moon. The path of his ellipse would not be completed; instead, it would meet the moon while the moon swung on its timeless journey around Earth. Then he must turn the ship around and use his rocket-tubes as brakes.

But all that was so much technical detail. He was in space!

Yes, all his life he had waited for this moment. His years of hope and dreaming and yearning, his glorious existence at the Academy. Even the bitter disappointment, that too had prepared him for this. Perhaps it had taken some of the Stardust from his eyes, but even then he should have known that some day he would reach space.

Acceleration had proven the doctors wrong: he had not felt the slightest twinge of pain in his mended collarbone. It was healed, fully healed—and, well, wasn't it better this way? If the whole thing had never happened, he might be out there in the derelict ship with Garr, and then there would have been no one to rescue them.

Fate played its hand in strange ways. Fate? Pete gazed long into the star-studded blackness of space. Not Fate, but God, and God's ways were not strange at all, if you could understand them.

As he looked through the port at the shoreless sea of emptiness crowding in all around him, Pete wondered. As a boy he had heard tales of the spacemen, of his father and others, and it was said that once a man went to space, space alone was his home and all else was alien. That might explain why the retired space-captains, old men at twenty-six, spent much of their time watching the proud liners roar up toward the sky. These liners were going to space, they were going back home, and in their hearts the spacemen were going with them. All this Pete wondered, and more. He could not help feeling a secret triumph deep inside of him. The odds had been all against it, but now he was in space.

His joy did not last, for how could he feel triumphant when the hardest part of his task lay far ahead of him through the void? How could he be elated when Garr waited helplessly in a derelict ship, not suspecting for a moment that help was on the way? And, Pete wondered, would he be able to do anything about it when the time came?

The Patrol had decided that it could not be done— Garr could not be reached for another six weeks. The Patrol knew. The Patrol did not make mistakes. What they neglected to say, however, was this: in six weeks it would be too late. If they did reach Section 17 in six weeks, a twisted, broken mass of metal would wait for them. . . .

Pete checked Ins fuel tanks, saw that more than enough remained to bring him safely to Luna. And, despite the situation, he tried his EarthJubber legs at free-flight. You couldn't merely walk from place to place within the ship, not in free-flight, not when gravity registered exactly zero, for that meant that your weight, in relation to your environment, was also zero. Gingerly, Pete stuck his left foot out ahead of him. It never even touched the floor!

He began to float. He could feel his right foot rising too, and soon he was off the floor altogether. It was not as if he had taken a forceful leap; no, it was not like that at all. Instead, it was as if he had been underwater and had kicked up gently toward the surface.

He floated in the air of the ship. Not fast, but not slowly, either; and he did not stop until he bumped against the far wall, where, using the hand-supports place at intervals for that purpose, he lowered himself to the floor. After that, he was careful. When he moved, he used the handgrips. When he wanted to remain motionless, he either strapped himself to his bunk or to the pilot chair. Soon he came to accept that situation, and before long he was too busy at the controls to worry about it, anyway.

His speed was twenty-five miles a second. It could have been much more than that—the ship could probably make one hundred miles a second. Once in space there is nothing to impede acceleration and, within limits, the more fuel you employ the faster you travel. But such speed was not necessary for the lunar trip. At a distance of 241,000 miles, the moon was only a jaunt. He'd cover that distance in considerably less than three hours, and with blast-off and landing time included, it would be not much more than three hours and a half.

The dash from Luna to the asteroids would amount to something else, for there the distances would really be astronomical. But he'd worry about that later.

Less than two hours later, Pete sat down at the controls. The moon swelled in the foreport, a pale white globe with darker markings spotted over its surface. But he hardly saw it. Instead, he fired his lateral rockets once, and again once. The sudden acceleration gave him weight, and the concussions jarred him back against his cushioned chair. Then he did watch the moon, through pain-slitted eyes. It had to swing around behind him, relatively speaking; or, actually, he had to make a full one-hundred-eighty-degree turn.

A signal light flashed on and off overhead and a whistle went "beep-beep-beep!"—which meant the turn had been concluded. Smiling, Pete slammed home the entire bank of rocket studs. With his back facing the moon, he was pushed against the seat and squeezed. Bad, yes, but the blast-off had been far worse, fighting a gravity several times stronger than the moon's.

And then Pete began to coast in over the scarred surface of Earth's satellite. He could land at Luna Base, where all the other Cadet ships had gone—nol If he did he would not be able to explain how he came into possession of the ship, and more than likely they'd send him back to Earth on the first commuter-rocket.

Some five hundred miles east of Luna Base stood the gaunt, high ringwall of Tycho crater. In its center, nestled in the crater mountains, the dome of Lunar Observatory gleamed brightly, a shining speck far below him. The astronomers used only a hundred-inch telescope at Lunar Observatory, but their observations were far more accurate because the moon had no atmosphere to interfere with vision. The lunar astronomers led a cloistered life. They kept a rocket and fuel for emergencies, but otherwise they remained pretty much to themselves, so an unexpected visitor might be able to glean some fuel from them.

Pete brought the ship down smoothly, not half a mile from the dome. He climbed into his spacesuit, adjusted the fish-bowl helmet over his head, activated the air-lock mechanism. In a few moments he stood outside, on the surface of the moon.

The horizon seemed impossibly close, the moon's small diameter could account for that. Powdered pumice stirred soundlessly underfoot. Overhead, the harsh rays of the sun baked down during the lunar day, with no atmosphere to intervene. Temperatures might rise to two hundred degrees above zero, Fahrenheit, and more, only to sink far below zero during the long lunar night which would follow.

Pete took a step toward the dome, and wound up spinning end over end before he landed, flat on his back! Lunar gravity being one-sixth of Earth's, you had to learn how to walk all over again. You had to walk carefully, almost delicately, as if you were treading on a carpet of glass goblets and did not want to break a single one. Slowly, painfully, Pete made his way forward, now tumbling in a heap, now soaring ten or twenty feet above the surface of the moon. At any other time he might have thought it amusing, but he knew he had to hurry, and every moment's delay might mean. . . .

He refused to think about it—

In fifteen minutes he reached the ground-level air lock of the dome, pushed his hand against the single stud he found there and waited. Presently, the outer door of the air lock swung in, revealing a tunnel perhaps ten paces long. Pete stepped within, turned and saw the door close behind him. Ahead, at the far end of the tunnel, was another identical door. It did not open until a red light blinked over it, signifying that air, heat, and pressure had filled the tunnel. Then, as the inner door swung back, Pete walked through and as he did so, began to remove his spacesuit.

Within the dome, a tiny village had been set out, almost, it seemed, in miniature. The two dozen prefabricated houses could each contain no more than two or three rooms, and from this distance the general store looked like a mighty interesting place. In the center of town stood the great metal girders supporting the giant reflector, the whole encased in heavy glass.

People stood talking in the few narrow streets. Others carried packages from the general store. Pete saw one woman pruning a rosebush in a shallow box of earth. Then, suddenly, a voice startled him:

"Hello, young man."

"Hello."

"We saw your ship coming in, and naturally we were interested. It isn't often that a ship reaches us here. We're astronomers and the world seems to forget about us—except for the reports we issue. Incidentally, I am Dr. Heidler, a sort of expert on extra-Galactic nebulae. Plow do you do, uh—?"

"Hodges, Dr. Heidler. Peter Hodges."

"Did you lose your way, young man? Were you supposed to land at Luna Base or something?"

"No. I didn't intend to reach Luna Base. I came here because I wanted to."

"That is interesting. Did you want to see our observatory, is that it?"

"I'd like to. I sure would." And Pete meant that. "But I haven't the time."

"No? What's your hurry? You landed here and now you're in a hurry to leave. Frankly, I do not understand." Dr. Heidler was a short, stocky man with sparse white hair, a pair of spectacles which were too small for him, and a round, cherubic face. He spoke with a vaguely German accent.

"It's simple," Pete told him. "I came here for fuel— and food."

"That does not make it simple, Mr. Hodges. Why could you not get those items at Luna Base?" "I couldn't. That's all I can say. But it's impor-

tant, very important. A man's life might hang in the balance."

"And is that all you will tell me about it?" "That's all I can tell you." "Are you a criminal?"

"No, I'm not. Dr. Heidler, I've said that a man's life is in the balance. I wasn't fooling. And every second of delay means—"

Dr. Heidler's eyes twinkled behind the small spectacles, almost merrily. "Look at yourself! Look at yourself! You are in need of sleep or certainly of a hearty meal. Yet you want to dash off into the sky somewhere. Well, we will talk about that later. First, I must take you home with me for at least a meal. Come."

All Pete's protests were of no avail. Dr. Heidler grabbed his arm in a gentle but firm grip and steered him toward one of the rows of small houses.

The woman pruning her rosebush proved to be Mrs. Heidler, a portly, pleasant individual who seemed, to Pete at least, of old German peasant stock. After introductions, Dr. Heidler said, "We are to feed Mr. Hodges a fine meal, Mama, and then Mr. Hodges and I are to talk business." Then: "Is Emma home from school yet? Good. Emma can help."

Emma turned out to be a surprise. She was about seventeen and had the bluest eyes Pete had ever seen, and the blondest hair. She was lithe and thin and very pretty, and it certainly seemed that life on the moon agreed with her.

"How do you do, Mr. Hodges?"

"Miss Heidler," Pete nodded curtly. "Folks, I appreciate all this, but honest, I'm in an awful hurry—"

Mrs. Heidler could be just as firm as her husband. She convoyed Pete to a table, chuckled when he plunked down hard on the wooden chair, then said:

"You will eat and that is all there is to it. The stew is finished now, anyway."

"And I," Dr. Heidler beamed, "I guarantee you a treat. It is a rare dish, this Hungarian stew, called goulash."

Pete could smell the delicious aroma now, and, in spite of himself, he realized he was hungry. He ate rapidly, while Emma and the two elder Heidlers sat down to join him, smiling as they watched.

"I thought you said you weren't hungry!" Emma laughed.

"I didn't say that—" between mouthfuls of the succulent stew—"it's just that I'm in a hurry. Umm-mm, this is good."

"I told you so," Dr. Heidler beamed proudly.

After the stew, Pete had a glass of milk and a generous portion of homemade apple pie. Again, between mouthfuls: "Hey! My mother can't do any better than this."

"The apples cannot be had often, for they are shipped whole from Earth," Dr. Heidler explained. "But it is a rare treat. Now, about your business—"

"I'll need fuel," Pete told him. "A lot of it. And concentrated food, enough for a couple of months."

"It is a long journey you will be taking?"

"A very long one."

"To Mars, perhaps?" demanded Emma, awed. "Beyond Mars," Pete said. "But please, I can say no more."

"Then you are not permitted to say where you are going? Is that it?" Dr. Heidler asked. "Yes."

"And you want us to help you. How do we know this thing you plan is within the law?"

"It is. I can't tell you how or why or what, but you 11 have to trust me. I'd pay for what I want, but I have no money. I can return later and—"

"Please! The money means nothing. Of fuel we have no need, and there is sufficient concentrated food here to last a lifetime. Water you may have, but sparingly."

"Then you'll give me what I need?"

"I did not say that. I do not yet know. Mama, what do you think? Emma?"

"I too do not know," said Mrs. Heidler. "Obviously, he is doing something in secret. It might be dangerous, it might be that the law would frown on his plans. . . ."

"Where are you going?" Emma asked him.

"Well, I guess I can tell you that much, in a general way. I'm going to the asteroids."

"The asteroids?" exclaimed Dr. Heidler. "The asteroids, indeed! And do you intend to make your fortune there? That time is fifty years past, young man, when one could make his fortune on the mineral wealth of the asteroids."

"That's not why I'm going. I told you, a man's life-"

"I—I like him!" Emma said suddenly. "He is a nice boy and I like him and I say you should give him what he wants."

All this she said in one rush of words. Then, when her father started to laugh, she blushed. "Well, you asked for my opinion, so I gave it."

No one spoke for a long time after that. Mrs. Heid-Ier scurried about the table, clearing away the dishes. Emma stood with her back turned, and Pete could tell from the red glow on her neck that she was still blushing. Finally Dr. Heidler said:

"Sometimes, I suppose sometimes, it is like that. One has no way of knowing and one has to trust. I think I agree with Emma; yes, I agree with the girl. We will give Mr. Hodges what he desires,"

Emma whirled around, smiling radiantly. "Good!" she cried. "Oh, I'm glad!"

An hour later, Emma and Dr. Heidler joined Pete outside the dome. They both wore the big, shapeless spacesuits of the astronomical service, and they each carried several hundred pounds of equipment to add to the pile Pete had accumulated. Emma Heidler toted a two-hundred-pound drum of fuel which, on the moon, weighed something more than thirty pounds.

"If I did this on Earth," she laughed through the intercom radio, "there'd be a job waiting for me in a circus!"

"You can live to a ripe old age on the moon," Dr. Heidler agreed, "for you do not have to work so hard, thanks to the lesser gravity. I wonder how many people who live on the Earth and gaze up into the distant sky realize that. I wonder—but I am probably wasting your time, Pete."

"Can't you tell us something of what you're going to do?" Emma asked. "I mean, it sounds mysterious, but I have a hunch it's something good."

"It's something I have to do. I just hope I'm in time. Here, I'll take that." And Pete carried the fuel drum within his ship, returning in a moment to take in a barrel of food concentrate. "I—I guess that's it, and look, if I try to thank you, I won't be able to thank you enough, so—well, I think you're all swell . . ."

Dr. Heidler shrugged. "We like you, Pete. It is enough to be able to help you, and that is thanks enough."

"Yes!" Emma cried. "Oh, yes. . . ."

They shook hands. After that, Dr. Heidler and his daughter wished Pete good luck, then they leaped and bounced across the pumice back toward their dome. They did not turn to see the ship roaring away into space, nor did they hear it, for the absence of an atmosphere on the moon precluded sound.

Chapter 78 In the Swarm

ACH of a thousand thousand tiny motes in the asteroid belt caught the sun's light, unshielded by any intervening atmosphere, and reflected it back at Pete. Each one shone like an individual jewel, and this close, Pete could detect their swirling, chaotic movement. Each looked like a gleaming jewel—but each could be a deadly missile of destruction.

His guess about the spaceship's speed had been correct. For three weeks the void around him had seemed changeless, but he had maintained a speed of one hundred miles a second, until, this "morning," the asteroids had swept up in the foreport. Naturally, morning and evening, day and night, held utterly no meaning in changeless space, yet you had to consider them; you had to sleep a certain eight hours of every twenty-four; you had to eat a morning meal, an afternoon meal, an evening one. And so you brought a pattern to timeless space, and you watched the hours drag by.

Motion is a relative thing, and with no mileposts in space, velocity does not show itself. Distance cov-

ered has no meaning beyond the instrument board. Such-and-such a speed over such-and-such a length of time signifies a certain distance traveled. . . .

Until one morning the asteroids fill all space in front of the ship.

Garr—Garr was out there somewhere, waiting hopelessly for the end. Somehow, that did not seem much like the Garr he had known, not the cheerful, laughing, freckle-faced youth who had grown up with him at the Academy. But now Garr had no choice; helpless, he could only wait for death.

According to the news reports, Roger Gorham had indicated that Garr would attempt to repair his radio. In three weeks he might have been successful, and until now Pete had maintained radio silence. Further, if Garr could only beam a weak signal, Pete was now close enough to catch it.

Eagerly, he switched on his radio, called into the transmitter: "Pete Hodges calling Garr MacDougal. Hodges calling MacDougal. Come in if you hear me, Garr."

Silence.

He tried again. And again. Then, faintly: "Pete! Am I hearing things, or is it really you? I don't get it—"

"Garr! Garr, you're alive!"

"You didn't expect anything else, did you?" Garr was laughing, but around the edges, Pete could sense strain in his voice. "Are you calling from Ceres Base, Pete?"

"No."

"Then I still don't get it. There's no delay in talking, and that means you're close. Where else could you be?"

"I'm in a ship," Pete said. "Slowing down now, about a hundred thousand miles from Section Seventeen. We'll have you out of this in no time, Garr."

Apparently, Garr did not think so. "Are you crazy? Get out of here! Beat it! I heard broadcasts from Ceres Base—it would be suicide to come in here for another three weeks. After that—well, then someone can cruise along and pick me up. But beat it!"

"You know darned well you probably won't be around in three weeks."

"We won't talk about that, but there's no sense in two of us getting it. I don't know how you got out here in the first place, and I'm not going to ask."

"Where in Section Seventeen are you?"

"Scram!"

"Don't be silly. I can pick you up by radar, only it would be easier this way. I'm coming in for you, Garr, one way or the other."

"You crazy fool! That's the way your brother got it. The same way. One in a family is enough, Pete. Get out!"

Pete sighed. "I don't want to argue, it only wastes time. But you'd better understand one thing, I'm not pulling out of here without you."

He could picture Garr shaking his head. "Be sensible, Pete. Even assuming you could reach me, just how do you intend to take me out?"

"Why, I'll join air locks with your ship. It's a dangerous move and I know it, but that's the way it can be done."

"Think so? This air lock was smashed by a chunk of rock the size of a pumpkin. Got any other ideas? My ship is punctured like a piece of Swiss cheese, and I've been holed up inside my spacesuit for the last ten days. Try eating food concentrates that way sometime. It isn't easy."

"Okay!" Pete shouted triumphantly. "There's your answer. As long as your spacesuit's in one piece, we haven't got a thing to worry about. I'll find you, magnetize a chunk of metal and attach it to a coil of rope. I'll toss the rope outside and the magnet'll hold it to your ship. You just snake along the rope till you reach my air lock."

"Sure," Garr groaned. "Sure. But meanwhile, you've got to find Section Seventeen, and you've got to thread your way through it to me. That's the rough part of it, Pete. You can't. This place is crowded, and I mean crowded. Big chunks, little chunks, asteroids, meteors, pebbles—they're all tumbling by. Not once in a while, but constantly. You'd never get through."

"I've got a way with orbits, remember? All right, this isn't much different. All I have to do is plot the orbit as I go along, changing it every time something gets in the way. Heck, I'll have you out of there in no time, Garr."

Garr snorted. "All right, okay. If I can't change your mind, I can't. But you'll have to find me by radar, because I haven't the slightest idea where I am. All my instruments went haywire. So—good luck, Pete. And... thanks."

After that, Garr cut the connection, but Pete heard another voice almost at once. "Hello out there. Hello!

We monitored your conversation, and the answer is no."

"Who are you?" Pete demanded.

"Radio Ceres Base," the voice replied. "The officials here can't sanction a dash into Section Seventeen for another three weeks, and that's an order."

"Who says so?"

"Colonel Tomilson, Ceres Base."

"I'm just a civilian," Pete snapped back. "I don't take orders from your commander."

"You do this time. You can either turn back or land on Ceres. Take your choice."

"And if I don't choose either?"

"First place, civilians don't pilot spaceships. Far as I can see, that makes you an outlaw. Out of White Sands, Earth, comes a report of a stolen ship, and that must be you. My advice is to come on over here and give yourself up; they'll go easier on you that way."

"Tomorrow," Pete said, laughing. "Or the day after. Right now, I'm busy."

The radio voice ignored him. "Second place, all ships out here take their orders from Ceres Base. Are you coming in, or do we have to go out and get you?"

"Take your choice, only I'm not coming in. By the time you can get out to me, I'll be deep in Section Seventeen, and then you'll just have to wait, huh?"

"That's not my decision. I'll simply make my report to the Colonel."

"Make it, then," said Pete and cut the connection.

He popped two or three concentrate tablets into his mouth, washed them down with a siphon of water. He checked his safety straps, then rechecked them,

angling the pilot chair around until he could keep an eye on both the instrument board and the radar screen.

With a spectroscopic radar beam, he probed out for Garr's ship, caught the return beam almost at once, saw the unmistakable green pips flashing on and off his screen. That was Garr—out there. Rapidly, Pete plotted a bee-line course for the spot, realizing that he would have to alter it tremendously once he reached the swarm. Then, with a grim smile on his lips which perhaps is a part of all spacemen, he cut in his aft rockets and knifed toward the swarm.

There was nothing gradual about it. One moment the sparkling jewels of the swarm stood off far ahead of him. The next, they swam up on all sides and he was lost in a maze of flashing lights. Once they got behind him, the meteors became invisible, for then they stood between him and the sun, reflecting light in another direction. But in front and on all sides, they glowed and sparkled.

The first red pips darted across his radar screen, and from somewhere arearships, a bell clanged.

Warning!

Something was close, something big enough to wreak havoc with the ship if it struck. The bell told him this; the radar screen indicated direction and distance. He angled away carefully, cutting his left rockets and shooting full power to his right. Acceleration jarred him, shoved him back in his chair. It was difficult enough to make any tuni in a spaceship speeding along at many miles per second, but these turns had to be sharp, so sharp that he might black out. And that would be the end. New pips would flash on the screen, the warning bell would clang again. With no one to respond, ship and meteor would join orbits and one blinding, jarring crash would put an end to everything.

More pips on the screen, three of them this time!

Pete calculated quickly, drove the ship in a snaking, twisting path, felt himself rocked and buffeted. Sweat began to dot his brow, soon was coursing down his face in growing rivulets.

Then a beeping sound came from his radio, and weakly, he reached forward and switched it on. "Pete! Pete! My radar is haywire like I said, but it shows something. Green, not red! It's you, Pete—you're coming."

"I'll—get—to—you, Garr!"

"Bad, huh? You can still turn back, fellah. Listen, why don't you . . ."

"Shut up! Radar's acting up again, pal. I'll see you soon." Then, under his breath as he snapped the set off, "I hope."

Another red flash, and another. Rocket away, twist and turn! More pips, dotting his radar screen each time he thought he would have a moment to catch his breath. Several times he could see the chunks of rock tumbling by through the foreport. That was the worst part of it, he could see them. When that happened, their fields of gravity which would be inconsequential at anything but close range would catch his tiny ship and rock it. He could imagine himself spinning around in the void, end over end, but naturally he could not feel it. There was no up and down in space, yet each near-miss would wrench him clear

down to his bones, pulling and tugging and hammering like physical contact.

He realized he was laughing wildly. They had told him he could not go to space. Acceleration might re-break the old injury! But in the last ten minutes he had battled acceleration a dozen times stronger than a spaceman had to face in his entire career. . . .

Again and again—and once more. ... It became an effort even to keep his eyes open. He opened his mouth and screamed, for he had heard somewhere that screaming helps relieve the pressure on the brain, the pressure that could make you black out. He screamed hoarsely and he battled the controls and weathered the jarring, rocking, spinning motion. . . .

And then he heard nothing. His mouth hung slack, but he wasn't screaming. His hands were limp, useless things in his lap. From some place infinitely far away, he heard the alarm bell clanging, clanging—

He had blacked out!

Somehow he had revived, but now he sat there, too weak to move. Radar pips flashed brightly on the screen, unheeded. He gathered every atom of his strength, reached forward toward the controls.

Something big and silvery swam into view in the foreport, pitted and scarred, tumbling over and over, heading straight for him! Instinctively, he ducked, and that took all his remaining strength. When he looked again, the mass of rock had veered away. He could not see it. He-Something behind him made a loud ripping noise. He turned his head slowly, agonized by the movement. From within, the entire left side of the hull looked as if it had been accordion-pleated. A side-swiping contact with the meteor had done it, but it was enough. He heard an angry hissing sound, knew that air was escaping from his ship. His hands crept forward, trembling, shaking. He had to reach the controls!

When he did, they failed to respond. Yet something was pulling the ship forward in space. He saw it then through the foreport. Not a meteor, but an asteroid, one of the bigger rocks in Section Seventeen, shapeless, ponderous, perhaps half a mile long. He was caught by its field of gravity, and now he was close enough to see the crags and pinnacles which it threw up at the black sky.

If he did not check his fall, and in a matter of seconds. . . .

He stabbed at the controls, but his hands refused to obey him properly—shaking, trembling, almost useless. Behind him, he still heard the angry hiss of escaping air, but that could wait. That had to wait. Air would not do him much good if he crashed—

Suddenly, the rockets rumbled and snorted and spewed out fire. He banked the broken ship sharply, every fiber of his body screaming with pain as acceleration mounted. He raised his head, looked through the foreport. He'd turned his rockets to the asteroid and they were slowing his fall. But still he plummeted down—down!

The last thing he remembered was a roaring in his ears before he struck.

Chapter 19 Far Away.

S

OMETHING was prodding his back. Something else was lodged firmly against his cheek, and he knew that his right eye was swollen. He felt cold, impossibly cold, and he tried to gulp in great quantities of air to ease his burning lungs. It did not help much.

A hissing noise—what was that hissing? Abruptly, he remembered. He tried to get to his feet, but something held him down. The safety strap still clung to his waist, although it seemed dangerously close to parting. He saw the shambles all around him inside the little ship and realized that the strap had saved his life.

But not for long—unless he could do something. The cold was numbing, and so completely unlike anything he had encountered before that at first he did not even know it was cold. He had nearly frozen to death in Antarctica, but that was an Earthly cold, something which could be understood. Here the utter cold of interplanetary space was seeping into his ship while the air seeped out, and with it the pressure.

He felt curiously light-headed. Groping with fingers that had no feeling, he unfastened the remains of his safety strap. He climbed to his feet, but sprawled full length on the floor before he could achieve balance!

He did not feel it. He was too cold to feel it and there wasn't enough air, and he could almost feel the final hysterical laughter bubbling up in his throat.

He spoke—he had to speak, had to get a grip on himself, but his voice frightened him. It was thin and soft and far away. "I've got to get a grip on myself. It's almost too cold to think or to move and the lack of air doesn't help. Probably I have only a few motions left, so every one of them has got to count. Careful! There— now I'm off the floor, and I'll have to stumble back to the cabinet and take out a spacesuit and put it on.. . ."

He walked slowly, still talking to himself logically, with a clear-headedness that surprised him. Directing himself, soothing himself. He had learned that at the Academy. It helped; it lent reality to an impossible situation, and it drove into a far corner of the mind what always comes briefly at such times. If I just relax, it will all be over in a moment....

No!

He spoke softly. He pleaded with his legs, forced first his right foot, then his left one forward with a terrible effort. Then he was at the cabinet. He brought his right hand up to the handle. He had to twist it, yes, twist it—twist! But his fingers were numb, and for a long time he did not find it within his power to grasp the handle.

Air continued to hiss away with every passing second. Something crackled vaguely, and he realized it was his own body moisture freezing on his skin. Only a few brief instants remained— He opened the cabinet!

The spacesuit hung there on a hook, big and bulky and impossibly heavy. He took it down, fell to the floor with it, managed to clamber to hands and knees. Slowly, so slowly that time seemed to have stopped, he climbed into it. First his left leg, then his right. His body next, and his arms. . . .

He placed the fishbowl helmet over his head, fastened it with fingers of stone-When the helmet fell into place, something clicked, and within the suit, warm air began to circulate while pressure was built up. He lay there, unmoving, letting the warm air caress his body. It could have been seconds or it could have been hours, he did not know. He lay there until he felt strength flow back into his body. Presently he stood up and surveyed the ship.

The ship had come to rest on a flat expanse of rock between two towering, jagged peaks. It had hardly been a crash—just a bumpy crash-landing, but nothing worse than that.

The meteor, however, was another matter. One side of the ship, almost from stem to stern, was twisted and bent and pushed in as a result of the collision. He could not find the hole at first, but that fact did not surprise him. Anything other than a small pinprick would have swept all the air and pressure from the ship, and he never would have been able to reach his spacesuit.

Yet he had to find the hole, as small as it was, for if he did not, he'd have to remain within his spacesuit, heavy and cumbersome though it was. He could just see himself fighting through the meteor swarm hampered like that!

It took the better part of an hour to find the hole and repair it. No bigger than the tip of his little finger, it was lodged midway on the deepest crease in the metal. Pete went back to the cabinet and took out a repair kit. His heavy leather gauntlets would protect him from radioactivity as he worked, and that would be necessary, for the science of plastics had come a long way. It was no longer necessary to introduce an impurity into the liquid material to solidify it. Instead, it was bathed in rays from radioactive cobalt, and the result was both quicker and stronger. Pete sprayed the liquid over the hole, covering an area two feet square, then subjected it to radioactivity. In a matter of moments, a solid patch as strong as the hull itself had been formed. Satisfied, Pete stepped away from it, waited until the gauges indicated that air, heat, and pressure had been restored to the ship. He stripped off his spacesuit and returned to the pilot chair. He tried the rockets, felt the ship vibrate with their action. It was half a derelict itself, and it would be good for nothing but the scrap heap if and when it returned to Earth, but with it he could reach Garr!

He jetted off the asteroid and sent out his radar beam once more, probing for Garr's ship. He found it almost at once, but then he was too busy with the red pips and forced acceleration to do anything but head in its general direction with a twisting, corkscrew motion.

He had always heard a lot of talk about second wind, but he had never paid the notion any serious attention.

Now, however, he experienced it himself. The ship spun and darted as wildly as before, yet grimly, he stayed with it. His whole world became a nightmare of clanging alarm bells and flashing red pips on the screen; once more his body took a terrible pounding.

Still, it was no worse than before—and he had already received his baptism of fire!

An hour later, his heart pounding furiously, his body bathed in sweat, he saw the dumb-bell-shaped asteroid. Or, looking at it another way, it formed a sort of figure eight, with two quarter-mile slabs of rock connected by a narrow neck. And, he knew, resting in that neck was Garr's ship-He cut rockets, circled the asteroid.. .. He saw the ship. Garr!

Broken and battered, it hardly resembled a spaceship. The hull had a dozen large holes in it, and the remainder was twisted and bent into fantastic shapes. Paint had flaked off, quartzite was strewn about the narrow neck of the asteroid.

And then, his hands trembling, Pete flicked his radio switch. "Garr! Garr, can you see me?"

"You bet! Holy space, Pete—I can't believe it. You got here. You . . ."

"Never mind. Listen, here's what I want you to do. Umm-mm, first I'd better ask a question. Your air lock is shot, you said, but can you get through it?"

If Garr were trapped inside the ship with no way of getting out. . .

"You don't sound so good, Petey boy. Rough, huh?"

"Yeah. I'll tell you later. Answer me!"

"Sure. Sure, I think I can get through it. Why?"

"Here's what I'll do. I'll attach a magnet—"

"Where will you get a magnet?"

"Will you let me talk? I'll take the magnetic plate off one of my spacesuit boots and use that. Anyway, it'll be on the end of a long coil of rope, and I'm going to throw that rope out to you. The magnet should grasp your hull and hold it. Then you make like Tarzan and climb that rope. I'll be waiting here for you."

Again Garr's voice: "You bet." But maybe reaction had set in. Garr sounded plenty scared.

Pete cut the connection, climbed into his spacesuit once more, after removing the magnetic plate from one of the boots. He found the coil of rope, tied it securely to the magnet. Then he opened the inner airlock door, stood in the tiny corridor which separated him from the depths of space. In another moment, the inner door had snapped shut, and the outer one slid back. Pete edged his way cautiously forward. He wore one magnetized boot, not two, and a wrong move might send him hurtling out into space. . . .

Space was full of stars and very beautiful, but he had eyes only for the asteroid just below him and for the broken ruin of Garr's spaceship. In his left hand he gripped one end of his coil of rope, swinging the other end—with its magnet—over his head. Then he let it go.

It seemed to float out into space. Slowly, so slowly. And then he realized that it had fallen short. He tugged it back in, hand over hand, to try again. Again it fell short.

Weight did not matter in space. With the slightest weight at all, the rope should reach, if it were long enough. He tried once more; thought he could see Garr waiting at the broken lock of the other ship.

Shortl

It was not easy to see for a certainty, but Pete thought the rear of his ship was several feet closer. Several feet, that's all it would take—but it could have been miles—

Carefully Pete recoiled his rope and stepped outside. With only one foot magnetized, he had to move at a snail's pace over the hull of his ship. One quick motion might hurl him off into space and then there would be no return. He drove the thought from his mind.

Steady, steady. Mustn't become nervous ... mustn't even think about it. . . .

He reached the back of his ship, reached the beginning of the rocket tubes themselves. And then he hurled his rope. It fell short by no more than five feet!

But that was enough. Garr could jump for it, all right—but if he missed he would be adrift in space and he would get no second chance. There had to be another way, a safer way for Garr. Surely a few feet would not be the margin between life and death-There was another way! He needed five feet, just five feet more—and he was six feet tall. . . .

Slowly, he removed the magnet from his other boot, holding his hand close to the hull. He felt something drawing him toward it until his hand clattered against it firmly. He was weightless in space and the magnet could hold him there by one hand, unless a sudden motion jarred him loose.

He kicked out with his feet, felt them leave the hull, floating out into space. He had tied the rope to one of his legs, and he kicked out with it carefully. He had played football at the Academy and had been an accurate punter, but now he had to be perfect. He could feel a gentle pressure on his leg as the rope uncoiled out into space easily, with no gravity to hold it back. He wanted to turn and watch it, but he knew that any motion might jar him loose.

He felt something in his leg, a sudden jolt, as if the other magnet had caught and held the hull of Garr's ship. It could have been his imagination; he could do nothing except wait. Mostly, it was the silence which got him. By one hand he held himself to the magnet which in turn gripped the hull of the ship. All around him, space looked on, cold, implacable, silent, bleak, for all its myriads of unblinking stars.

He could only wait-Something tugged at his foot—and again!

Vaguely, he could feel the magnet moving under his fingers, sliding along the hull. Sliding. . . .

The motion in his leg became rhythmic, up and down, up and down. That had to be Garr on the rope; it could be nothing else.

Waiting became a torment. The motion had belonged to him always, and always would continue. Up and down. Up and down.

Then, something else. A new sensation. Rhythmic no longer, but jerky, irregular. He could not bear the suspense. He whirled and looked.

Garr was there!

Garr, holding his leg with one gauntleted hand, the

coil of rope wrapped around his other arm while he fastened its magnet to one of Pete's boots. He could see Garr's face through the fish-bowl helmet. He could see Garr smile weakly. Pete kicked back toward the ship, felt his foot land and hold. Then he was sliding along toward the air lock, and Garr was with him.

They went inside. They closed the lock behind them. They took off their spacesuits and their helmets. They looked at each other.

Finally Garr said, "It's about time you got here!"

It was a long while before they stopped laughing and pounding each other on the back.

A day in late autumn. The sun shining down brightly, despite a chill in the air telling of winter's coming. The trees were losing their last withered leaves to a brisk wind from the north.

The auditorium at the Cadet Academy was crowded and all eyes were on Marshal Mahoney as he spoke in clear, strident tones.

"Mankind is a cocky breed," he was saying. "We pushed back the barriers of space and accepted the challenge. It is new and much of it is still unknown, but because certain individuals among us can, at certain times in their lives, assume an unheralded initiative, space is ours!

"It is the job of this Academy to turn out men like that, but in the final analysis, it is up to the men themselves. For, out there in the wild unknown, orders must often be ignored. Each spaceman is on his mettle, and on each depends the hopes and dreams of men.

"In general terms, that sums up the story of Peter

Hodges. It is a wonderful story, and we all know it I will not repeat it now. I am quite sure that Pete has a lot of other things he would like to be doing!

"Instead, I am going to turn this platform over to someone you all know—to Peter Hodges, Sr."

More applause. Big Pete strode briskly down the aisle in his old uniform, in the uniform that had been with him on Mars and out among the Jovian moons. He reached the platform and in steady hands took from Marshal Mahoney the bright rocket emblem. Pete stood up very tall and very straight as his father pinned the rockets to his tunic.

Marshal Mahoney cleared his throat. "Spaceman Hodges," he said, "you have some special talents, I hear. I'm referring to the way you can plot orbits in your head without resorting to reams of paper work. I have a hunch that talent will be needed when our first expedition starts out for Saturn and its moons."

He shook hands quite solemnly with Pete, and then, from somewhere back in the great hall, the Graduate Cadets were singing. It was too loud and it was a little off key, but it did not matter.

"Well thunder off to lo, Out in the Jovian Moons. We'll feast our eyes and seek the skies And plunder Martian ruins!

"Ho! for the void and far away! We'll chase the stars and race old Mars And maybe land one day— Ho-ho Ho! for the void and far away!"

Glossary

Acceleration: refers to a change in speed or direction of travel. Any change will produce acceleration, but tremendous speed in a straight line will not. It's only when you change the direction or increase the speed that the pressure of acceleration is felt. When speed is decreased, it is felt again, but this time it is called deceleration.

Air lock: entering or leaving a spaceship in deep space, you can't simply walk through a door, for there is neither air nor pressure outside, and both air and pressure would escape from the ship if you did. Instead, you use an air lock, a device consisting of two doors with a small tunnel in between. Upon leaving the ship, the inner door is shut before the outer one is opened, and the reverse is true upon entering. That way, air and pressure are sealed within the ship.

Artifacts: products or tools of human workmanship, particularly of primitive crafts.

Asteroid: one of thousands of "miniature planets" revolving about the sun, primarily between Mars and Jupiter. The asteroids vary in size from chunks of rock or metal several feet across to small worlds several hundred miles in diameter. They are also called planetoids.

Astrogafor: an astrogator is to space travel what a navigator is to air or sea travel. In other words, he directs the ship upon its course.

Blast-off: that moment at the beginning of a spaceship's flight when it has built up sufficient power to leave the ground. Blasting pits are a likely development to prevent the escape of lethal radioactive exhaust.

Dome-city: a city built on an airless world or a world with a nonbreathable atmosphere, too little or too much pressure, temperatures too high or too low. A hemisphere of tough, transparent plastic covers the city, maintaining earth-normal conditions within it. Entrance must be through an air lock.

Jovian Moons: satellites of the fifth planet, Jupiter. There are four large ones—two of which are bigger than the planet Mercury (Ganymede and Callisto) and two comparable in size to our own moon. Seven others are very small.

Meteor: a speck of spatial debris, varying in size from dust-grain diameters to chunks of rock and/or metal several yards across. Many billions of them hurtle through space in the solar system, and it is estimated that a hundred million fall into the Earth's atmosphere every day, but virtually all of these are destroyed by the heat generated by their rapid passage through the air. Meteors don't follow regular orbits as the asteroids do, and generally they are much smaller.

Nebulae: vast clouds of gas hanging in space. They are extremely remote, extremely tenuous, and some of them shine by reflected starlight.

Orbit: the path a planet follows around the sun is its orbit. All planetary orbits are elliptical, which means they are slightly elongated circles. Similarly, the path of a spaceship in flight from one planet to another is an orbit—and, again, elliptical orbits are employed because they are the most economical.

Solidograms: full-color pictures which, using the theory of polarization of light, appear to be perfectly three-dimensional. Today, a stereoscopic viewer gives roughly the same effect.