Rocket from Infinity (7 page)

“Let's quit jabbering and get it over with,” the third man said. It was the first time he'd spoken and now it appeared that he was the leader. Without hesitation, the other man brought up his rifle.

Left on his own, Pete would have been dead within the next three seconds. But he was not without an ally. As the rifle began moving upward, Jane jammed her foot down on the switch that controlled the movement of the bubble. It snapped into place. The rifle cracked simultaneously and a slug scratched the thick, bullet-proof surface of the bubble and angled down against the rock of the asteroid.

Another slug followed it; then another, and Pete heard Jane shrieking in his ear. “Move it! Don't sit there! Do you want to get killed?”

Uncle Homer was coming closer. With Pete's possible escape looming as a danger to him, he became more decisive. Had he been able to bring his weight to bear, he might have held the car back long enough for the other two men to come to his aid. Then it would have been a simple matter to prevent its take-off and pry the bubble away with the tools they had available.

But Pete cut off the magnetic grapple and hit the jet switch with the same motion and the monocar shot upward, Uncle Homer's hand scraping the sides as it pulled away from him.

The man with the rifle was still firing, pouring slugs after the car with frantic haste. They smashed against the underplating of the car, but construction heavy enough to stand against Belt conditions stood also against a rifle of the caliber that threw the slugs.

As they arced away from the asteroid, the third man was already moving toward the scout car they had used to pirate the claim.

“They'll come after us,” Jane said. “They'll have to. And that scout's bigger and faster than we are. Open up your jets! Gain whatever distance you can.”

“Thanks—thanks for saving my life,” Pete mumbled as he peered backward and saw the three men climbing into the scout.

“Shut up and move this go-cart! Your life isn't saved yet by any means.”

They sat silent now as Pete opened the jets wide and took chance after chance with possible collision in order to maintain the speed. The initial shock over, Pete's mind was beginning to work again. He was surprised at his own lack of fear even as he looked back and saw the scout already in space, circling to locate the still visible monocar.

“You're right about the speed difference. They'll run us down in ten minutes.”

“If we dodge and twist—”

“No. We can't run, so we've got to hide. I think I can make the Badlands before they catch us. In there we'll have a chance.”

Jane relinquished leadership, her silence an acknowledgment of this.

“Hang on for possible collision,” Pete ordered. “I've got to cut across the stream.”

“Be careful,” Jane whispered. And reverting from strong savior to the fragile female, she closed her eyes and put her face against Pete's shoulder.

The agile, highly responsive monocar did insane loops and turns as Pete kept changing course to avoid the asteroid stream that would have casually crushed them and gone on its way undisturbed. Once a lumbering asteroid twice the size of the monocar hit the bubble. But the crushing surface was smooth rather than murderously jagged, and the car bounced away to roll over several times before it balanced off. As they approached the edge of the Badlands, Pete guessed wrong and blundered into a swarm of fist-sized asteroids that smashed savagely against the little car's plates. But again, providentially, none of them were large enough nor was there a differential in speed great enough to allow damage.

Two minutes later Pete reduced speed and crept into the vast, moving field of supreme danger known as the Badlands. It was an eerie place at the point they entered, with the sunlight sifting through only in ever-changing shafts and the continual ominous sound of too-closely clustered boulders grinding each other to dust.

“They may follow us in if they're desperate enough, but now we've got an even chance,” Pete said.

“Even if they don't find us, we may not get out alive.” Jane, pale from reaction, lay with her head back against the rest, her eyes closed, possibly to blot out the dangerously tumbling asteroids around them.

“We'll try and hide out here for a while. Maybe they'll give up. Then we'll cross to the other side of this cluster.”

“Cross over—that's so easily said. But not quite so easily done.”

Pete began searching for a likely refuge. Concentrating on the job, he was hardly aware of the silence that fell between them. Then Jane said, “I'm sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

“You were right. And finally, I had no way out. I had to admit the truth of what Uncle Homer really is.”

“You had no way of knowing.”

“Oh, I knew,” Jane retorted bitterly. “I've known for a long time. Mother is sweet and wonderful but—well, she has a way of believing what she wants to believe. She doesn't like to think badly of anyone. And Uncle Homer is close to us. But I knew.”

“You had to be loyal to your family.”

“He wasn't really a part of the family. No, that wasn't the reason. Like Mother, I believed him because I wanted to. He was a pretty sorry specimen of a man, but he was all we had, and I guess the thought of the four of us being alone scared me. And Father believed in Homer, so I kept giving him the benefit of the doubt—until there weren't any doubts left.”

“I want to thank you again for saving my life.”

“Somehow I knew from the moment we set down that they would kill you before they'd let you go. So I was ready.”

The car nosed carefully in and out among the grumbling, grinding boulders. At times, thunderous crashes were heard in the distance but none of them were close enough to send chain-reaction crashes into the area where the monocar pushed timidly forward among the great rock monsters.

There was another period of silence. Then Pete became aware of small sounds and turned to look. Jane was crying ever so quietly, her face in her hands.

Pete was frightened. He was out of his depth in coping with emotional females—and this new softness in Jane. It robbed him of the only weapon he'd ever had against her—a countering hostility.

“Here now! None of that,” he said, a defensive gruffness in his voice. “You've been great. This is no time to crack up.”

“I'm not cracking up. It's just that…”

“I know. You've had a terrific emotional shock. After years of trying hard to believe in Homer you've had to face things as they are. It's not easy to take.”

“I guess that's how it is,” Jane sniffled.

“But you've got to admit that it's better to know the truth.”

“I hope so, because there are no doubts left now.”

“Just be thankful he isn't a relative. That way, family loyalty doesn't enter into it.”

“I think I'm crying for my father. He was so sweet. He was like Mother. He believed in everybody.”

“He must have been a great guy.”

“He
—look out!”

Pete's glance had been momentarily on Jane. He saw her eyes widen in terror as she looked upward. “Look out! There it is again!”

Pete jerked his head around and saw a great, dark shadow bearing swiftly down upon them.

CHAPTER NINE

PHANTOM SHIP—KILLER SHIP

Jane's mood and manner changed magically. In an instant, her eyes were glowing and she was an image of razor-sharp alertness.

“There it is! There it is! You thought I was crazy! Now what have you got to say?”

She was clutching his arm and Pete shook her off. “Let go of me! That thing's trying to crush us.”

That impression was inescapable. It was definitely a huge spaceship of some sort. At first glance it looked to possess a grotesque, lopsided nose of fantastic proportions. Then Pete saw that the protuberance wasn't a nose at all. It was an asteroid against which the ship was lodged—fusion of some sort following a crash, he surmised.

But he had little time to ponder this weird phenomenon because the vast elongated bulk of the ship was smashing directly down upon the monocar. Without time to select a path, Pete jetted the car into a sharp forty-five-degree horizontal turn and slithered out from under the monster with the hull scarcely three feet away.

The maneuver could have driven him head-on into an asteroid, but he found the way clear. He jetted to the edge of a cluster well beyond range of the flailing hull and eased to a halt. Turning the car and setting his speed at drift, silently they looked back at the thing that had almost killed them.

“It's—it's impossible!” Pete babbled “What kind of a ship is it? How did it get in here?”

“The getting here isn't too hard to figure out,” Jane said. “It drifted in—pushed its way through because it's bigger than anything it encountered.”

“But what pilot in his right mind would permit such a thing?”

“It doesn't look to me as though there's anyone alive inside. It's just drifting.”

“Then where did they go?”

“How would I know?” Jane snapped, and if Pete had been in the mood to notice, he would have concluded that Jane was her snappish, disagreeable self again.

But his attention was elsewhere “There's something funny about that ship,” he said.

“That's certainly the understatement of the day.”

“I mean something really funny. Something more than just a strange ship adrift in the Badlands. It tried to kill us.”

“What's odd about that? You moved right in under it.”

“Do you notice anything strange about this layout?”

“What do you mean?”

“This is a pretty solid area of the Badlands. It's thick with drifting asteroids. Yet there's an empty pocket around that ship. Not a rock within range of it.”

“Pure coincidence?”

“I'm not so sure. I'll swear that wasn't a casual drift that almost got us. It was controlled movement.”

“You're crazy. The ship came back to balance and now it's just running along with the drift.”

“I'm not blind,” Pete grumbled. “I can see what it's doing. But—wait a minute. Hold on tight.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I'm going to try something.”

“Don't be stupid! You'll get us killed yet.”

“I don't think so.”

“That's comforting, but I'd like you to be positive before you make any moves.”

Pete ignored her as he made the move he had in mind. Tensed for an instant reaction, he jetted the car slowly forward into the open space around the ship. Nothing happened. They moved closer. Then, as they came inside the arc the ship was capable of while swinging with its imprisoned nose as a fulcrum, there was definite movement.

The hull shuddered and swung in their direction.

“Did you see that?”

Pete cut sharply to the right, drew a tight arc of his own, and went back to his drifting spot. From this point of safety they watched the giant swing around until it passed through the position they had lately occupied. Then its apparent drift ceased, and it swung back into a straight line with the drift of the stream.

“What did you prove?” Jane asked innocently.

“Didn't you
see
what I proved?”

“Just that it's easy to get killed in here.”

“That ship lashed out at us.”

“And you laughed at me for calling it a live thing. Actually, all you did was make a move coincident with a magnetic drift-swing.”

Pete smiled, “I'm glad you're getting your feet back on the ground.”

“That sounds funny—out here.”

“I was speaking figuratively.”

“Look—will you stop pushing our luck? We've brushed close to death seven distinct times that I recall, and now—”

Pete ignored her as he pushed carefully back into the cluster behind them. Safely inside, he selected an asteroid about half the size of the monocar and put his nose gently against it. Then he pushed the asteroid slowly out into the open.

When he had it clear of the cluster, he put more power to the jets and forced the big rock into an intermediate arc that would carry it within range of the spaceship's lateral swing.

“Now watch.”

“What am I supposed to see?”

Pete pointed. “That!”

As though the approach of the asteroid constituted a signal, the hull of the ship began to arc around on its rock fulcrum. At one point, both Pete and Jane gasped as the ship elevated its swing with a definitely artificial upward jerk. Thus, when its plates hit the approaching asteroid, it was with a dead-center contact that reversed the asteroid's course and sent it spinning back into the cluster.

“All right,” Pete said grimly. “Was that natural magnetic drift?”

“It knocked the asteroid back into the cluster!”

“Exactly. And what does that prove?”

Jane smiled with a touch of mockery. “I'm all ears, teacher. What
does
it prove?”

“A cybernetic brain.”

“Well, aren't you the clever one? A ship with a cybernetic brain patterned to batting asteroids around the Belt. A rather expensive child's toy, I'd say.”

“If you're so blasted smart, figure out your own riddles,” Pete snapped. “I'd say it's some sort of a defense mechanism. A pilotless ship is vulnerable. It repels boarders or at least makes boarding difficult. And it can clear its own path if necessary.”

Happy at having needled Pete successfully, Jane was all apology. “I'm sorry. I didn't know you were so touchy. What will we do now?”

Pete glanced at her and found her expression so guileless and trusting that he felt guilty at being annoyed. “I think we ought to try and board her. I think she's a derelict.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Because we get no signal. We might get shot to pieces or welcomed with open arms, but we certainly wouldn't be ignored by a live ship.”

“That reminds me,” Jane said. “I want to call home.”

Passing quickly through the emergency band, Jane put the
Snapdragons
call letters on the public channel and a few moments later Rachel Barry's plaintive voice came in. “Jane! You poor child! What are they doing to you now?”

“Nothing, Mother, but a lot has happened.”

“Can we keep our monocar?”

Jane looked blank for a moment. So much had happened that she'd forgotten about Pete's salvage threat. “Yes, Mother—I mean, no—well, maybe.” Jane looked appealingly at Pete. He was no help. “An awful lot has happened, Mother.”

“Then
tell
me, child. Did that awful Pete Mason apologize to Uncle Homer for the things he said?”

“No, Mother. I can't tell you about it now. It was the other way.”

“Uncle Homer apologized to—”

“No. He tried to kill him.”

“Jane! You aren't making sense. Who tried to kill whom?”

“Mother, this is a public channel. I'll tell you later. Right now we're in the Badlands. We found a strange ship and—” Jane stopped, becoming quite confused herself. “Mother, I'll tell you all about it when we get back.”

“When will that be?”

“I don't know. I've got to cut out. Uncle Homer might get a fix on us if he's listening.”

“Why should he want to do that? Jane! What's going on?”

“Mother, I've got to cut out! I'll call you later.”

Jane snapped the switch. “I guess I shouldn't have called,” she said. “Mother will worry her head off now.”

Pete wasn't paying any attention. He was studying the mysterious derelict that now hung motionless in the stream with its nose glued to the huge, jagged asteroid.

“I'm going to try to grapple on,” he said.

“But you just saw what happens when—”

“It would have to really whip around to throw us off with our magnets on full. If it starts shaking our teeth loose, we'll let go.”

“It certainly ought to be fun,” Jane said dubiously. “Fun or not, there's something you're overlooking.”

“If you're referring to salvage possibilities, I'm way ahead of you. If that ship is a derelict it could make the Barrys rich.”

“What about the Masons?”

“Oh, we'd be generous and declare you in.”

“Well, thanks a pile!”

Pete wasn't as annoyed as he sounded. He thought it probable that Jane was deliberately forcing the light, bantering mood. Her moment of truth relative to Uncle Homer had hit her hard. He admired the about-face courage she was showing.

“Here goes,” he said. “I'm going in fast so we can clamp on before she starts swinging.”

“Good luck—good luck to both of us—but how do you know her reaction potential? You saw lazy swings against slow-moving objects.”

“A ship that big can't react sharply enough to be dangerous.”

“Just for the sake of argument,” Jane said, “I'll bet it can.”

Pete gauged his angle visually and jammed down on the jet switch. “Women!” he muttered disdainfully.

A few moments later, after a monstrous swish of suddenly hurled metal brushed their grapplers, they were whirling end-over-end toward a wall of clustered asteroids.

Pete clawed desperately at the controls and reversed to a halt with a jagged shaft of rock just ready to ram in through the bubble. With the car hanging on balance, they untangled themselves. Jane pushed her hair out of her eyes and said, “You're very good. Your reflexes and your skill saved our lives.”

“Thank you.”

“But of course that was after your stupidity put us in danger.”

Pete neglected to thank Jane for that. He stared at the ship as it settled back into its trough behind the asteroid. “That does it. We can't board the idiotic tub!”

“Oh, I wouldn't say that,” Jane replied airily.

“What's your idea?”

“If I was in charge I'd go around in front and ease the car over the asteroid. The brain's got a time-span quotient or it would still be trying to shake off the asteroid its nose is fused to. If we came in from that side…”

Pete was staring, still expressionless, at the weird ship.

“All right!” Jane exploded. “It's only a mechanical brain. Its deductive abilities are limited to its patterns. Come in from the front and you might fool the crazy thing!”

“I didn't say it wasn't a good idea,” Pete snapped.

“Thanks for the credit.”

Pete did not reply as he pointed the car along the wall of the open circle and moved around in front of the asteroid that had captured the spaceship. He nosed up over its jagged surface and inched toward the spot where the collision fusion had melted the craft and the asteroid together.

“That ship certainly took a sweet punch in the nose,” he muttered.

The fusion area—metal and lava run together—was at least ten feet wide.

“It doesn't make sense,” Jane said. “How could a ship and an asteroid fuse that way? One of them should have been smashed to dust.”

“The only way it could have happened seems impossible.”

“What way?”

“As I see it, the collision occurred out in space. Either the ship or the asteroid was revolving at a high rate of speed at the time of contact. Two coincident motions would have been necessary.”

“You mean high-speed trajectory and rotation at the same time.”

“That's right. But how could such a situation have been brought about?”

“I'd say an asteroid. Knocked off a larger body, it could have a forward-spinning motion in the same direction as its trajectory!”

“And the new trajectory formed by the collision brought the ship and the asteroid into the Badlands.”

“Well, no pilot in his right mind would have brought it here, that's for sure,” Jane said.

Pete was watching the ship as though he expected it to grow a fist and knock him back where he'd come from. “We seem to be getting away with it,” he said cautiously.

“The brain can't differentiate us from the asteroid it's accepted.”

“Maybe it would be smart if we grappled onto the fusion area. Then I'll walk onto the hull and hang on by my boots.”

Jane was doubtful now. “I don't know. Maybe we ought to go for help.”

“And split the salvage?”

“Your father and Betcha—”

“No,” Pete said firmly. “We've got to find out more about this tub. I think the brain would accept established contact—a magnetic grip—because it accepted the fused asteroid.”

“We'll both go.”

“You stay here. You'll have to pick me up if I get thrown off.”

They activated their heat and air equipment, and Pete opened the bubble and crawled out of the car. He grappled to the fused surface and then began moving forward. Jane watched tensely from the car as he came to the edge of the fusion and stepped across.

Nothing happened. He moved his other foot forward. There was no reaction from the ship. Slowly, then with increasing confidence, he moved out onto the massive hull and turned to motion Jane toward him. A few moments later, she, too, was crossing the fusion area and grappling to the hull with her magnetic boots. Pete waited for her and as she came close he noted the confused and questioning look on her face.