He picked up the tug-control microphone. “Go up fifty thousand miles and sound a gong when we are through the magnetosphere.”
That also scared me. The forty-thousand-mile-wide belt around the planet was composed of deadly radiation. I hoped he’d closed the port shields tight.
The tug auxiliary engines hummed. The high-pitched whine of gravity-adjustment coils impinged upon my ears. Used to Captain Stabb’s rough handling, I had expected to stagger but I didn’t even feel a change in weight. The tug handled itself very well. I hoped its robotbrain wouldn’t suddenly go crazy.
I stared anxiously at the viewscreen. It made me a little dizzy to watch it. It was scanning in a sphere: the Earth was there and then the moon and then black space and then the sun.
We certainly were going up very fast. The moon turned yellow-yellow. The Earth began to look like a huge liquid bubble, blue-green except where continents were red-brown.
“Where are we going?” I said fearfully.
Heller was setting up an instrument. He had it hooked to an outside scanner.
“Are you looking for the assassin pilots?” I said.
“This is a gamma-ray-sensitive electron telescope,” said Heller. “I’m searching for a primordial black hole. There may be quite a few in this system close by.”
“The assassin pilots!” I said.
“That’s your job,” said Heller. “I’m busy.”
Believe me, I fixed my eyes on that spherical scanner like I was hypnotized.
Time passed.
Suddenly a gong went. It scared me half out of my wits. We were through the magnetosphere. That was a relief, anyway: I wouldn’t be sterilized or burned to a crisp.
I pinned my gaze on the scanner. Those assassin ships could catch us easily enough while we were on auxiliaries. I wished we were on the big time-converter Will-be Was engines. No, I didn’t—they blew up sometimes!
Heller was busy with the gamma-ray telescope.
My own eyes were wearing out, anxiously watching the scanner. Earth swam like a liquid bubble. I could see no speck in that expanse which would identify the position of the assassin in his deadly ship.
Abruptly a voice spoke. I could not credit my senses. There were only two of us and the cat in the ship. Heller wasn’t talking. I wasn’t talking. Was the cat talking?
I mean to tell you, it was pretty rattling.
The voice came from nowhere.
Now that I could collect my suddenly dispersed wits, I realized it was speaking Voltarian.
“Sir, I am sorry to bother you, but in spherical sector X-19, Y-13, Z-91, an unidentified flying object has just altered course and speed and is paralleling ours, range 7,091.56 miles. The picture is on screen 31. If you will forgive my interruption of your doubtless far more important and intelligent considerations, I would take it as a favor if you were to look and give me your much more valuable opinion.”
THE TUG WAS TALKING!
I flinched away from the side bulkhead. Was this thing made of flesh and blood?
Heller hadn’t lifted his eye from the telescope image-relay cup. “Thank you,” he said. “Give me your estimate of possibilities.”
“Estimate one: Friendly and coming over for a chat. Not likely. Estimate two: Curious. On its way to investigate. Estimate three: Hostile. On its way to shoot at us. My inputs are blank on the subject of Fleet vessels in the area of Blito-P3, likewise Apparatus, likewise commercial. I am afraid, sir, that I am anemic from lack of input concerning space vessels in this system. Bis, when he loaded me, mentioned primitive space efforts but none of it compares here. I am sorry, sir.”
“Thank you. Riffle your recognition bank.”
“At once, sir. I must advise you, however, that the range is very great as yet, though closing. My image is very indistinct.”
“It’s probably absorbo-coat,” said Heller, still studying his telescope.
“Oh, thank you, sir. That throws out 87.9 percent of the bank. I’ll scan the rest.”
I stared at my viewer. I couldn’t see anything. Here I had been wearing my eyes out and the (bleeped) tug had been looking all the time! Not only that, it had spotted something I hadn’t. I began to seethe with rage at it. One does not like to be beaten by a silly robot! It destroys one’s sense of omnipotence!
“You have somebody on my flight deck,” the tug said, “who is emanating hostility. Could I advise a word of caution, sir?”
“He’s crazy,” said Heller, still working with his telescope.
“Yes, sir. I will add that category to the classification.”
I choked down my wrath.
“You might as well add him to your memory,” said Heller. “He is Officer Soltan Gris, Secondary Executive of the Coordinated Information Apparatus, en route to trial for high crimes including the ordering of the murder of a Royal officer and the sabotage of a Grand Council-ordered mission.”
“How dreadful,” said the tug. “I have the Penal Code references of those crimes, sir, if you want the numbers.”
“Just add his picture to your bank and sound an alarm if he does anything destructive,” said Heller.
I heard a click somewhere as though somebody had operated a camera. I had never felt so much a prisoner in my whole life. I was in the guts of a robot. Would it digest me?
“On this other matter,” said the tug, “my forty-third subbrain has been winking for attention. On the unidentified flying object, the range has closed to 6,789.078 miles. It is not responding to a demand for recognition. It is definitely Estimate three: hostile.”
“Classify,” said Heller.
“Flying cannon. Such vessels are used by the Apparatus as assassin ships. In the reign of—”
“Thank you,” said Heller. “What do you advise?”
“That I turn on the Will-be Was main drives and we depart from this locale, sir.”
For once I could agree with this (bleeping) tug!
“No, I don’t think that will be necessary,” said Heller.
“Sir, may I remonstrate? Fleet Intelligence Officer Bis, when he loaded me, expressly stated that my first concern was your safety. In fact, sir, he said he would enter me as a failure on Fleet engineering rolls and would not rest until he had me and all models like me junked if you came to harm while aboard me. The range is 4,506.8 miles now and closing.”
“What is his effective range of fire?”
“Against a battleship, about two miles. Against such a fragile thing as me, sir, about ten miles, with slight damage to be experienced at twenty.”
“We’ve got lots of time,” said Heller.
“Oh, dear,” said the tug. “I wish to also call to your attention that my fifty-seventh subbrain just reported that it’s 22.7 light-years to the nearest repair yard.”
“There’re facilities at the Earth base,” said Heller.
“No Earth base is in my recordings, sir. I will amend the fifty-seventh subbrain instantly. By ‘Earth’ you mean Blito-P3, sir?”
“Yes.”
“I think I’ve got one,” said Heller. “Corky, record the coordinates I’ve just set on this telescope. Primordial black hole.”
“Yes, sir. I have them. My twenty-third subbrain says that primordial black holes are notorious for sucking unwary vessels in, sir. Formed by the initial shock which, in theory, determined the pattern of this universe, they are suction whirlpools of magnetic force and distort time and space. The exudation of gamma rays can also be quite deadly. . . .”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“It’s in Fleet Intelligence Officer Bis’ loaded instructions, sir. To keep you safe.”
“Where is the flying cannon now?”
“He has closed to 735.86 miles, sir. Could I, in all deference, point out that we have a primordial black hole in front of us that we are drawing closer to and an assassin ship behind us that is closing. My thirteenth subbrain has concluded this is not a safe situation, sir. Do you mind if I take over and we get the hells out
of here?”
“I’m going to shut you off and go on manual,” said Heller.
“Oh, dear. But, of course, I realize that my piloting skill can never compare with yours. However, going up against a flying cannon with an unarmored, unarmed tug is . . .”
Heller threw a switch. The voice stopped. “Robots are too cautious,” he said.
“The tug is right!” I wailed. “We’ll be blown right out of space!”
“Where is this guy?” said Heller. He was leaning toward screen 31. He was buckling himself into the planetary-pilot seat, used for local maneuvering.
I looked at my chains around the pipe. I remembered what Heller had told me the very first time I had ridden in this tug. The maneuverability of such a ship was so sudden one could easily snap his neck.
“What about me?” I wailed. “If you go whipping this thing around you could smash me to pulp!”
“Good riddance,” said Heller. “Sit down on the floor and hold on.”
Just before he fastened his last strap, he reached up and threw the shields off the pilot viewports. A blast of savage sunlight almost blinded me.
I heard the click of Heller’s last strap fastener.
The tug suddenly spun about and faced the other way.
My light-dazzled eyes could make out nothing as I looked anxiously toward the globe of Earth.
There was a sudden surge.
HELLER WAS GOING BACK TO MEET THE ASSASSIN SHIP!
We didn’t even have a gun!
Yes, indeed, he had turned suicidal!
PART SIXTY-THREE
Chapter 1
Heller sent Tug One hurtling through space.
“You’re going to get us killed!” I screamed. Frantically, I looked to see if there was some way I could get the shackles off the pipe and free my wrists.
He was closing with the flying cannon at a dreadful rate. I could see the speck now, by naked eyeball, through the pilot ports. It was growing in size!
It packed an enormous gun, capable of smashing a battleship’s plate to old tin. What would it do to this small space tug?
Heller began to jink. Hands rapid on the tug’s local-maneuvering controls, he was sending it up and down and side to side erratically. He was changing speeds from a hundred thousand miles an hour down to fifty and back!
The gravity coils that made it possible to ride this thing were not as fast as Heller’s hands. There was a lag each time and even if it was only a split second, it was enough to shake me to bits!
The cat was holding on to the star-pilot seat with every claw. Even its skin looseness was apparent in these sudden surges and slows.
“Yow!” said the cat.
“Don’t be concerned,” Heller said. “This tug is all engines and made to do this sort of thing. That flying cannon has to pivot his whole ship to aim and shoot. I think we’ll be too quick for him.”
“You THINK?” I cried. “Oh, Goddess of the Seventh Sphere, prepare to take me to your breast and hold me there in peace.”
“Shut up!” said Heller. “If you’re going to pray, the devils are more likely to listen to—”
WHAM!
The first shot from the assassin ship exploded to our right, a blossom of green fire, blinding bright against the ink of space. It whipped behind us.
The lethal vessel was fifteen miles away.
WHAM!
The tug jarred as a shot above us barely missed.
The assassin pilot was eight miles ahead.
WHAM!
Something seemed to pound against our hull below.
The assassin was two miles below.
The tug stood on its nose. Made to push and tow enormous weights, unfettered it was like a chip in a hurricane under Heller’s hands.
WHAM!
The shot was short by five hundred yards. We flashed through the blossom.
I felt like I was caught in a pinwheel. Our motions were far beyond what gravity coils could handle.
Black space.
The sun gone by in a streak.
A sudden glimpse of the moon.
“YOW!” said the cat, holding on.
Oh, horned devils of the Sixteenth Hell, please receive me and don’t let me move again for an eternity! Anything I had ever done did not deserve being in the hands of a Voltar Fleet combat engineer bent on suicide!
The tug seemed to be skidding sideways.
Abruptly the slew stopped.
STRAIGHT IN FRONT OF US, NOT TEN YARDS AWAY, WAS THE PORT SIDE OF THE FLYING CANNON!
Heller hit a throttle.
CRUNCH!
The butting bow of the tug, its wide arms made to push ships, thudded straight up against the flying cannon’s hull!
I stared in horror through the viewport.
The flight deck of the assassin ship was not ten feet in front of our viewports!
The tug’s nose was hard against the vessel.
There was a rending grind of metal as the killer ship tried to accelerate away!
The assassin pilot was right there, red gloves and all! He was glaring into our very viewports!
He shook his fist!
His copilot fired the gun to give them recoil to try to shake loose.
The tug was pressing against the other vessel’s side, holding tight as a leech.
Heller’s hand slammed against the throttles.
The assassin pilot’s brutal face went white as chalk.
He was being thrust sideways.
He couldn’t get free.
Heller’s hand reached over for the Will-be Was main drives. He pushed.
The tug leaped ahead!
A terrible sound of rending metal transmitted through our hull.
The inertia of the flying cannon’s weight fought against the tug’s acceleration.
SCREEECH! BONG!
The assassin ship disintegrated.
Heller flipped the tug upside down.
Through the viewport I could see the squashed hull, shedding fragments.
Two pale pink mists were all that was left of the assassin pilots, exploded by the vacuum of space.
“You all right?” said Heller. I thought he was talking to me. I started to answer and then realized that his question was aimed at the cat.
“Yow,” said the cat.
“I’m sorry,” said Heller. “But you’ll just have to get used to it now that you are a member of the Voltar Fleet.”
PART SIXTY-THREE
Chapter 2
We were drifting in black space amidst the wreckage of the assassin ship. The Earth was a liquid ball below, fifty thousand miles away.
Heller threw on the robot’s switch. “Check any hull damage, Corky.”
“You should not have shut off my voice. I could have given you some pointers.”
I looked around. I wasn’t able to tell where the tug’s voice was coming from. It was sort of spooky.
“Longitudinal seams entirely sundered, engines cracked, ammunition magazine—”
“Corky,” said Heller, “NOT the flying cannon. Check your own damage.”
“Oh, I am sorry, sir. The question was inadequately specific—meaning no criticism, sir. Please advise if you wish the data verbal or in printout form on your desk in the aft salon.”
“Heavens,” said Heller, “is it that extensive?”
“I am not used to working with you yet, sir. Your wish is necessary on certain matters. A question of substantive preference. My input expressly states that I am to make you happy if at all possible. Could I have an answer, please? My twenty-second subbrain is on hold.”
“Verbal and printout,” said Heller. “But let me have the data, please.”
“There are two small scratches on the butting arms, sir. One is 3.4 inches long, 1/16 of an inch wide. The other is 2.7 inches long and 1/8 of an inch wide. Yard cost will be 2.7 credits.”
“Is that all?”
“Well, yes, sir, but ‘Is that all?’ is inadequately descriptive. The absorbo-coat is breac
hed and enemy detection gear will reflect from it. I suggest that this matter be handled at the earliest opportunity so that I can execute my actual purpose of preserving you from harm.”