Chapter 1

Patrol Cruiser “IP-T 247” circling out toward Pluto on leisurely inspection tour to visit the outpost miners there, was in no hurry at all as she loafed along. Her six-man crew was taking it very easy, and easy meant two-man watches, and low speed, to watch for the instrument panel and attend ship into the bargain.

She was about thirty million miles off Pluto, just beginning to get in touch with some of the larger mining stations out there, when Buck Kendall’s turn at the controls came along. Buck Kendall was one of life’s little jokes. When Nature made him, she was absentminded. Buck stood six feet two in his stocking feet, with his usual slight stoop in operation. When he forgot, and stood up straight, he loomed about two inches higher. He had the body and muscles of a dock navvy, which Nature started out to make. Then she forgot and added something of the same stuff she put in Sir Francis Drake. Maybe that made Old Nature nervous, and she started adding different things. At any rate, Kendall, as finally turned out, had a brain that put him in the first rank of scientists--when he felt like it--the general constitution of an ostrich and a flair for gambling.

The present position was due to such a gamble. An IP man, a friend of his, had made the mistake of betting him a thousand dollars he wouldn’t get beyond a Captain’s bars in the Patrol. Kendall had liked the idea anyway, and adding a bit of a bet to it made it irresistible. So, being a very particular kind of a fool, the glorious kind which old Nature turns out now and then, he left a five million dollar estate on Long Island, Terra, that same evening, and joined up in the Patrol. The Sir Francis Drake strain had immediately come forth--and Kendall was having the time of his life. In a six-man cruiser, his real work in the Interplanetary Patrol had started. He was still in it--but it was his command now, and a blue circle on his left sleeve gave his lieutenant’s rank.

Buck Kendall had immediately proceeded to enlist in his command the IP man who had made the mistaken bet, and Rad Cole was on duty with him now. Cole was the technician of the T-247. His rank as Technical Engineer was practically equivalent to Kendall’s circle-rank, which made the two more comfortable together.

Cole was listening carefully to the signals coming through from Pluto. “That,” he decided, “sounds like Tad Nichols’ fist. You can recognize that broken-down truck-horse trot of his on the key as far away as you can hear it.”

“Is that what it is?” sighed Buck. “I thought it was static mushing him at first. What’s he like?”

“Like all the other damn fools who come out two billion miles to scratch rock, as if there weren’t enough already on the inner planets. He’s got a rich platinum property. Sells ninety percent of his output to buy his power, and the other eleven percent for his clothes and food.”

“He must be an efficient miner,” suggested Kendall, “to maintain 101% production like that.”

“No, but his bank account is. He’s figured out that’s the most economic level of production. If he produces less, he won’t be able to pay for his heating power, and if he produces more, his operation power will burn up his bank account too fast.”

“Hmmm--sensible way to figure. A man after my own heart. How does he plan to restock his bank account?”

“By mining on Mercury. He does it regularly--sort of a commuter. Out here his power bills eat it up. On Mercury he goes in for potassium, and sells the power he collects in cooling his dome, of course. He’s a good miner, and the old fool can make money down there.” Like any really skilled operator, Cole had been sending Morse messages while he talked. Now he sat quiet waiting for the reply, glancing at the chronometer.

“I take it he’s not after money--just after fun,” suggested Buck.

“Oh, no. He’s after money,” replied Cole gravely. “You ask him--he’s going to make his eternal fortune yet by striking a real bed of jovium, and then he’ll retire.”

“Oh, one of that kind.”

“They all are,” Cole laughed. “Eternal hope, and the rest of it.” He listened a moment and went on. “But old Nichols is a first-grade engineer. He wouldn’t be able to remake that bankroll every time if he wasn’t. You’ll see his Dome out there on Pluto--it’s always the best on the planet. Tip-top shape. And he’s a bit of an experimenter too. Ah--he’s with us.”

Nichols’ ragged signals were coming through--or pounding through. They were worse than usual, and at first Kendall and Cole couldn’t make them out. Then finally they got them in bursts. The man was excited, and his bad key-work made it worse. “--Randing stopped. They got him I think. He said--th--ship as big--a--nsport. Said it wa--eaded my--ay. Neutrons--on instruments--he’s coming over the horizon--it’s huge--war ship I think--register--instru--neutrons--.” Abruptly the signals were blanked out completely.

Cole and Kendall sat frozen and stiff. Each looked at the other abruptly, then Kendall moved. From the receiver, he ripped out the recording coil, and instantly jammed it into the analyzer. He started it through once, then again, then again, at different tone settings, till he found a very shrill whine that seemed to clear up most of Nichols’ bad key-work. “T-247--T-247--Emergency. Emergency. Randing reports the--over his horizon. Huge--ip--reign manufacture. Almost spherical. Randing’s stopped. They got him I think. He said the ship was as big as a transport. Said it was headed my way. Neutrons--ont--gister--instruments. I think--is h--he’s coming over the horizon. It’s huge, and a war ship I think--register--instruments--neutrons.”

Kendall’s finger stabbed out at a button. Instantly the noise of the other men, wakened abruptly by the mild shocks, came from behind. Kendall swung to the controls, and Cole raced back to the engine room. The hundred-foot ship shot suddenly forward under the thrust of her tail ion-rockets. A blue-red cloud formed slowly behind her and expanded. Talbot appeared, and silently took her over from Kendall. “Stations, men,” snapped Kendall. “Emergency call from a miner of Pluto reporting a large armed vessel which attacked them.” Kendall swung back, and eased himself against the thrusting acceleration of the over-powered little ship, toward the engine room. Cole was bending over his apparatus, making careful check-ups, closing weapon-circuits. No window gave view of space here; on the left was the tiny tender’s pocket, on the right, above and below the great water tanks that fed the ion-rockets, behind the rockets themselves. The tungsten metal walls were cold and gray under the ship lights; the hunched bulks of the apparatus crowded the tiny room. Gigantic racked accumulators huddled in the corners. Martin and Garnet swung into position in the fighting-tanks just ahead of the power rooms; Canning slid rapidly through the engine room, oozed through a tiny door, and took up his position in the stern-chamber, seated half-over the great ion-rocket sheath.

“Ready in positions, Captain Kendall,” called the war-pilot as the little green lights appeared on his board.

“Test discharges on maximum,” ordered Kendall. He turned to Cole. “You start the automatic key?”

“Right, Captain.”

“All shipshape?”

“Right as can be. Accumulators at thirty-seven per cent, thanks to the loaf out here. They ought to pick up our signal back on Jupiter, he’s nearest now. The station on Europa will get it.”