over the place out here onthe rim. If you try to go through the corridor towards an emergencylock, they'll have you sure with their needle guns. You heardElbertson delegate three men to kill you!"
"I expect I can find a place where they aren't." And picking up theSecurity radio from the intercom bench, he turned it on and spoke intoit.
"Elbertson, this is Mike Blackhawk. You now have twenty minutes tosurrender," and he cut off.
Mike turned to Tombu. "Get me some plastic wrapping material.Preferably a plastic bag. I've got to make this stuff waterproof."
When the power supply, telescope, milling head and extension cord wererigged and carefully wrapped in plastic to make a waterproof package,he attached them with a shoulder rope.
"Too bad we didn't make a lock in the wall right here," he muttered."But I don't suppose the Security guards will be guarding those emptylabs over in the R-12 sector. Guess I'm going for a swim now." Andwith that, Mike reached down and carefully removed the inspectionplate from one of the floor tanks, and lowered himself over the edgeinto the racing waters.
Hanging there with one hand, he carefully pulled his plastic bag intoposition beside and slightly behind his body, and let go. Instantly hewas sucked away into the subdued blue fluorescent-lighted glow of thewaters of the rim.
"Glad they figured these planktons need light," he thought to himself."I'd have a time finding where I'm going in the dark."
Forty-five seconds later, he reached up and snatched at a passinghand-hold, next to a plate marked with the numbers of the lab hesought.
Wrenching the handle of the inspection plate and pushing it free, heclimbed out into the deserted lab; made his way out into the corridor,his unwieldy package hanging to his shoulder and runlets of watermaking a trail behind him--and stepped into the nearby emergency lock.
In the lock he quickly donned one of the emergency spacesuits thathung there, gathered up his bundle again, and stepped out on thecatwalk of the inner part of the rim, under the brilliant night sky atthe moment, but turning towards its "sunrise." He opened his plasticpackage.
"Major Elbertson," he said, turning on the Security radio, "you nowhave five minutes to surrender."
Attaching his suit to the guideline nearby, part of the rim's"hairnet," he crept out over the inside edge of the rim. From thisposition he had a full view of the glowing bubble that was Hot Rod forthe few seconds until the movement of the rim took him past the"sunrise" point and turned him sunwards.
Last time Mike had been out on the rim, the wheel had not beenturning. There'd been no reference of up and down, other than the rimitself as an oddly curved floor. Now he felt disoriented. The wheelwas spinning, the hub, therefore, seemed "up." And from the edge ofthe rim where he clung to its hairnet, all directions were down.
* * * * *
The stars seemed to sweep beneath his feet and over his head; andthough it was a slow pattern, only twice as fast as the crawl of asecond hand around the face of a clock, it was, nevertheless,disorienting.
Bracing himself carefully into the net, with his back wedged firmlyagainst the rim, he adjusted his bizarre "gun" to rest on his knees sothat he could sight in the direction that was, to his body's senses,straight down.
Not at all, he thought, like trying to shoot fish in a barrel. Morelike being the fish and trying to shoot the people outside the barrel.
Back in the shadow again. Not really shadow where he sat, but the rimaround him, below him, and curving away from him, had disappeared inits brief nightside, and there came Hot Rod again. Carefully hetracked it; then putting his eye to the scope he focused briefly onone of the high-pressure supporting tubes that formed the rigidstructure from which the aiming mirror was held in place.
And fired.
The tube burst, noiselessly but quite spectacularly. And the mirroritself shuddered shook, as the tube's gases escaped.
Now he was in bright sunlight again, quickly closing his eyes as thesun itself looked full into his vision, and slowly passed to befollowing by Earth, to be followed by a blank stretch of starry space,and here again was Hot Rod.
Carefully he tracked another of the supporting tubes.
And fired.
And again a spectacular, writhing collapse--and this time, the mirrorfell free, supported by only two tubes, and permanently out of focus,incapable of aiming the monster beam.
This time, Hot Rod was definitely secure from the misapplication ofSecurity.
"Three minutes," he spoke into the radio. "Your weapon is dead. Mynext shot will be through the nitrogen tank at your air-lock. Iwouldn't advise you to be there."
The wheel turned once more, as the radio came alive from the otherend.
"Mr. Blackhawk, do you realize that what you are doing constitutesmutiny in space and will be dealt with accordingly on Earth? I haveofficially taken control of Hot Rod at the command of my superiors inthe new U.N. Security Control Command."
Mike didn't bother to answer. As the wheel turned him towards Hot Rodagain, he said into the radio, "Two minutes."
Elbertson's voice came again. "With this new weapon we control Earth.Don't you realize that you can't stand up against the new people'sgovernment of Earth?"
The wheel came around. Mike replied: "One minute."
The lock on the Hot Rod control room opened. Frantic tiny figuresburst forth, activated scuttlebugs, and started on the five-mile trekback towards the big wheel.
Mike worked his way back through the clinging net to the catwalk,failing completely to see the tiny figure that dodged beneath the rimas he approached.
Glancing around he carefully scanned over the entire inner rim beforestepping out into the sunlight of the catwalk itself. Nothing.
Then a blink caught his eye, and he glanced up toward the observatory.There. In the observatory.
He thought for a minute it was someone signaling, but it was only atouch of sunlight on the shiny surface of the automatic trackingtelescope, which was poked out of the open shutters of the airlessobservatory, still doing its automatic job of recording solarphenomena in the absence of the astronomers.
* * * * *
Instead of re-entering the lock as he had intended, Mike linked hissafety line to one of the service lines that lay along the nearestspoke, and kicked up it.
On Earth, he could have jumped maybe four feet with that motion. Buthere, it carried him the full distance to the outer wall of thehub-shielding tank, where he grasped another line, quickly transferredhis safety line, and began working his way toward the observatory.
As the intersection of the rim where Mike had been passed intodarkness, another figure moved and jumped up the same line he hadtaken. But this Mike did not notice.
Reaching the bulge at the end of the shielding tank and crawling upover it, Mike made his way up, at an odd reversed angle, through thenetting; and into the observatory dome through its open shutter.
Making his way about in the open vacuum in free-fall conditions of theobservatory, Mike carefully checked the lock at the main axis to makesure that he could get into it without arousing an alarm for anyguards that might be nearby.
The lock showed vacant, and empty. Just as he was about to enter it,he saw another figure in a spacesuit come drifting through the openshutter where he had entered.
Mike stepped into the lock, closed the door behind him as though hehad not noticed, and cycled the lock. But he did not remove his suitand did not leave.
As the lock showed clear, the observatory door opened again, and thetwo spacesuited figures stood face to face. Mike with needle gunraised checked himself in surprise. Then he motioned the other figureinto the lock.
"And just what are you doing here?" he inquired as the air around thembecame sufficient to carry his voice.
"You might have needed help," answered Dr. Millie Williams in a small,scared voice as she took off her helmet and shook out her long hair.
"And just _what_," Mike inquired, "were you planning to do
about itbesides having me shoot you by mistake?"
Millie held up an oversize pair of calipers. "The Security people,"she said, "are not the only ones with weapons. I borrowed this fromthe machine shop."
Mike stared down at the odd-looking "weapon."
"It's hard," Millie continued, "to look at more than one thing at atime through a spacesuit helmet. I could've got 'em in the air hosewhile you held their attention."
Mike's chuckle was just a trifle ragged, and his mutter aboutblood-thirsty panthers didn't really go unheard as he began shuckinghis spacesuit.
This was the most dangerous point, Mike knew. The axis tube went fromthe observatory straight through to the south polar lock, with nothingto block sight or sound from traveling its length. They'd have tosimply chance it. The spacesuits shucked, he