Space Lawyer (4 page)

"You're taking a mean revenge, dad," she exclaimed. "You can't—"

He put his hand against her cheek, stroked it gently. His eyes softened. "You like him, don't you, child?"

"No—that is, yes—I don't know. He didn't even
see
me." "Let me handle him, Sally. It will be a good experience. If he's got the stuff in him, this year will bring it out. There's nothing like space for making or breaking men. If he breaks, then we'll know—you and I. If he doesn't, then we're both sure about him."

Kerry Dale sweated and strained at the huge chunks of ore that were rapidly filling the hold of the
Flying Meteor.
The sweat streaked down over his half-naked body and dripped from under his rubberoid paints. As he heaved and juggled, he wondered. Three days bad passed since he sent that impudent, carefully deliberated spacegram to Old Fireball, and nothing had happened. It didn't sound right. By all accounts that most irascible old man should have promptly exploded and fired him by return message—which was just what Kerry had counted on. A horrible thought came to him. Had the girl in the office double-crossed him and not sent off the spacegram? His jaw hardened. If she hadn't, he—

Bill, the shipboy, came whistling into the hold. "Hey, Kerry, the cap'n wants to see you. Gee, you must of done somethin' terrible!"

Kerry's fellow handlers stopped work, made clucking sounds of pity. When the captain sent for one of their kind, it meant only one thing—trouble!

Jem said anxiously: "For God's sake, Kerry, whatever it is, don't try to talk back, or you'll land up in the Ganymedan hoosegow. And that ain't no place to be. I've been there," he added feelingly, "so I know."

But Kerry threw down the piece of ore he was handling with a contemptuous clatter. Exultation filled him. He laughed at their anxiety. "So long, fellow slaves!" he waved to them. "I'm through; washed up. I've been waiting for this call. Next time you see me, call me `Mister.' I'll be a free man, free of Old Fireball and his lousy ships. Bon voyage,
mes pauvres."

They stared after his swaggering exit. Jem shook his head and looked anxious.

Captain Ball greeted his cargo handler with a smile. It was a grim smile, but Kerry didn't note that. All he saw was the spacegram in the captain's hand.

"This is for you, Dale," purred the captain. "Direct from Mr. Kenton himself."

"Direct from Old Fireball himself?" said Kerry jauntily. "Very sweet of him to fire me in person.
Tsk! Tsk!"

He spread out the spacegram; read:

Dale:

Fire you? Not at all. Glad to have you in employ as cargo monkey.

Suits your talents perfectly. One whole year!

KENTON

Kerry was shocked; more, he was dumbfounded. The old scoundrel! He could see him laughing fit to kill in that office of his. He had outsmarted Kerry. A whole year doing this rotten, jumping job! He'd be damned if—

Captain Ball said grimly: "It may interest you to know that I also received a spacegram. I'm to make you toe the mark." He laughed nastily. "As if I had to be told that. Now get back to your work, you ether-scum, and don't let me catch you laying down on it or I'll put you in irons with extreme pleasure.

Git!”

Kerry got. It was a much sadder and wiser young man who came back into the hold to meet the queries first, then the gibes of his shipmates.

"Mister
Kerry Dale!" mimicked one. "He ain't gonna be no slave no more, nohow. No, sirree.
He's
gonna tell Captain Ball and Old Fireball, too, just where they get off. Yes, sirree."

"Lay off the lad!" commanded Jem sharply.

Kerry grinned painfully. "Let them talk, Jem. I've got it coming to me. I thought I was smart." Then his jaw squared. "But I'm not through yet, not by a long shot."

"Good lad!" approved Jem. "Now about that load over there—"

The
Flying Meteor
cleared for Earth; picked up another cargo, returned to Ceres. Kerry had never worked so hard in his life. He gained a new respect for the brawny spacemen and their ability to take it. He was fast becoming one of them himself. The rough work hardened and deepened him, and he gained the saddle-grained tan that was the hallmark of all the men of space.

Captain Ball rode him; but there was no persecution. No excuses were permitted; no extra shore leave granted him, as sometimes happened to the other members of the crew. The letter of the contract was religiously upheld.

He didn't have a single comeback, Kerry reflected bitterly. He had drawn that blasted contract only too well; so well that even
he
couldn't find a single loophole in it.

The first resentment passed. Old Fireball had hoisted him with his own rocket, and that was that. But he was determined before the year was up to make that chortling old man regret the day he had triumphed so easily over him. Just how he'd do it, he didn't know as yet. But his brain worked overtime, seeking opportunities.

In Megalon he saw a telecast. It was the only recreation he could manage in the six-hour shore leave his contract called for. The feature—a rather dreary tale of adventure on a still-unexplored Saturn—bored him. The way these writer chaps dress up space life! I bet not one of them ever set foot on a spaceship. Then the news program flashed on.

"And now," said the announcer, "we'll show you Miss Sally Kenton, the beautiful, high-spirited daughter of Simeon Kenton, and sole heiress to all his millions. She's about to take off for the Moon in her new, special-job flier. It's a honey, as you'll see immediately for yourselves; and—I don't mind telling you—so is she. In addition to her other accomplishments, Miss Kenton is the only woman holder of the Class A Flight License."

"Huh!" snorted Kerry in the depths of his seat. "Her old man's pull got her that. And why is it that every girl who's born to millions is beautiful, according to the announcers. I bet she's cross-eyed and bowlegged and—"

"Shut up!" Jem said genially. They had gone together. "Did you ever see her?"

"No; and I don't want to."

"Well, I have. On the telecast, that is. But here she is." The rocket field swam into view. The one-seater flier gleamed and sparkled with sleek stellite. It was a beauty. But Kerry jerked upright in his seat at the sight of the girl who stood at the open port. Her windblown hair rippled in the sunshine; her piquant face was turned smilingly toward the visiscreen.

"Well?" murmured Jem admiringly. "Cross-eyed, hey? Bowlegged?"

"Holy cats!" breathed Kerry. "I . . . I thought she was Old Fireball's secretary."

Jem snorted.
"She
don't have to work. Even if she wasn't born to money. Not with those looks!"

But Kerry wasn't listening. Even after the newscast shifted elsewhere he sat in a daze. He had dreamed of that girl. Even though they hadn't said a word to each other. And now his dreams collapsed. Aside from everything else—he had used violent hands on her father, and even more violent words. Oh, well, the hell with it! Might as well be hung for a wolf as for a sheep. He'd show the precious pair of them a thing or two before he was through.

But two more trips intervened, and a month had passed; and still he was a wrestler of cargoes. He cudgeled his brain and he utilized every spare shore leave to seek opportunities for striking back at the smug Old Fireball. He drew only blanks.

Then, back at Planets again, there was a hitch. They were due to pick up an especially fine load of high-grade electro-magnetite. Back on Earth this alloy of rare metals cost a hundred dollars a ton to produce and industry clamored for all it could get. The atom-reactors which powered the world's work were lined with the alloy. Nothing else could stand up as well or as long under the terrific explosions of the bursting atoms.

Only two months before, however, one of Simeon Kenton's exploration expeditions had found an asteroid on the very outer edge of the Belt, not far from Jupiter itself, which was practically sheer electro-magnetite. The asteroid was small, yet the experts figured it at sixty thousand tons of workable metal. At a hundred dollars a ton

"Lucky stiff!" stormed Jericho Foote, of the rival Mammoth Exploitations, and sent a ship posthaste to chart every asteroid in the vicinity of the find. The expedition came back with sad news. There were plenty of asteroids, all nicely mapped and orbits plotted; but nary a one was anything but useless burnt-out slag and rock. And there the matter dropped.

This was the first load that had been mined. And the fat-bellied, slow-moving scow that was freighting it to Ceres for transshipment to Earth on the
Flying Meteor
had broken down in space about a million miles from Ceres. A radio flash came in, calling for a tow. A tow-ship, with special magnetic grappling plates, started out. It would take almost a week before the crippled ship would come in.

Captain Ball swore deeply, but there was nothing else to do but wait. Perforce he gave his crew shore liberty. He was so upset by the mishap that he forgot to exclude Kerry Dale from the coveted leave.

So that Kerry found himself wandering the enclosed streets of Planets, seeking something to do. There was plenty to do, if you cared for that sort of stuff. Joy palaces, drink dives, gambling layouts, honkatonks, razzle-dazzles—all the appurtenances of a System outpost calculated to alleviate the boredom of space and wrest away from its wayfarers the hard-earned pay they had accumulated.

The crew of the
Flying Meteor
went to it with whoops of joy and a spray of cash. Even Jem, ordinarily sober and steady, fell for the lure.

"Come along, Kerry," he urged. "It will do you good. Cap Ball's liable to wake up any moment to the fact that you're included in the leave."

Kerry shook his head. "Not me, Jem. I still remember how I got so drunk I didn't know what you gave me to sign."

Jem looked pained. "You aren't holding that against me, lad?"

"Not at all. That was your job. But I've got other fish to fry; and I've a bunch that somewhere on Ceres I'll find both fish and frying pan."

So he walked the streets, heedless of the siren calls from overhanging windows, thinking hard. He simply
had
to get back at that old rascal, Simeon Kenton. But how?

This discovery of his—electro-magnetite. Six million dollars’ worth of stuff dumped into his lap. Could anything be done about
that?
He couldn't see how. The claim of ownership to the asteroid had been filed. Properly filed, without doubt. Kerry remembered the meticulous care they had used back in Horn's office to check on every claim. Horn was a pompous old ass, but he knew about mining claims. There'd be nothing there.

Still—it wouldn't hurt to take a look. Might as well, in fact. Planets wasn't built to provide distractions for men of his stamp. So his feet moved him rapidly toward the Bureau of Mining Claims and Registrations.

Ceres had jurisdiction over the entire Asteroid Belt. Every claim, every title, had to be registered there to be valid.

Dale walked into the Records Department, asked to see the file on Planetoid No. 891. This was the way Kenton's find was listed—the jagged little bit of metal was too tiny for a name.

A can of film was handed Kerry and be was given a projection room in which to examine it. Carefully he studied the elements of the claim on the projection screen, running it over and over.

After an hour, he gave it up with a sigh. The chain was airtight and space-tight. Horn had done a proper job on it. Old Fireball would hold title until Kingdom Come. Every possible contingency had been provided for. Prior liens, mineral rights, space above and core beneath.

Glumly he turned the can back to the clerk. The clerk said conversationally: "Lucky guy, that Kenton."

"Yes."

"Jericho Foote's been taking a fit. He must of spent a cool hundred thousand on that expedition of his alongside. All he brought back for it was a beautiful chart of that whole sector of space."

Kerry said suddenly: "Got it here?"

"Sure. All those things go on file. Want to see it?"

"Might as well. I've got nothing else to do."

The clerk examined him curiously. To outer appearance, in his rubberoid suit and with his calloused hands, Kerry was just another cargo wrestler. Nothing else to do in Planets, huh?

A bit offended in his local pride the clerk withdrew, returned with a larger can.

Kerry took it into the projection room.

It was a beautiful chart, he acknowledged. Foote had sent along one of the best cartographers in the System. Every sector was carefully plotted, every asteroid, every speck of space dust put in its proper place and the elements of its orbit set forth in measured tones.

Idly, Kerry checked some of the orbits on a scratch pad. Back in college, before he had gone in for law, he had been pretty good at space mathematics.

He plotted a few of them, for no special reason, but just to see if he still knew how to do them. He did.

The courses were pretty complicated, what with Jupiter, Mars, the Sun and all the other asteroids pulling on one another. The orbits did loops and curlicues and led nowhere in particular.

He was about to give it up, when he came across a somewhat larger bit of flotsam, perhaps a mile across at its greatest diameter. According to the accompanying data it was an arid waste of congealed lava, with a pitted, glassy surface. Nothing on which to waste a second glance. Yet there was something curiously familiar about the elements of its orbit. He stared hard at them. Where had he seen similar ones?

Kerry riffled through his sheets of calculations, stopped suddenly at his figures on Planetoid No. 891. There it was. Allowing a differential angle of six degrees to Plane Alpha the two sets of elements might have been twin brothers.

An idea groped in the back of Kerry's head. He began to plot the course of the second asteroid, No. 640. His pencil raced and his brain raced. His excitement mounted as the complicated elements unfolded. Checking each set against those of No. 891, it seemed—it seemed—