Chapter 16: In Orbit Around Pluto

There was a mad rush to action stations. Detmar, Ferrati and Oberfield, who had been in their bunks, dashed to their posts while others tried to pass them in both directions. Haines and Burl hastily climbed into their space suits, while Ferrati and Boulton manned the inner defensive controls.

Burl pulled the tight-fitting harness of his insulated space suit over him. The shape of the Sun-tapper ship came into focus on the tiny screen of the air lock viewer. It was approaching them at a frighteningly rapid pace. He could see the broken framework of one of its two globes--the one on which they had scored their hit. The other globe and the connecting passages were strikingly clear. Tiny circles of windows were visible in the passage section, which undoubtedly housed the operators of the vessel. For a fleeting instant he realized that as yet none of the Earthlings had any inkling of what these creatures looked like.

While he knew that the scene was telescopic, the ship was undoubtedly approaching them fast; or rather, they were catching up to it at a perilous pace! Whether the wrecked enemy had slowed down more than they had, as it approached its Plutonian base, or whether some other surprise lay ahead, they had no idea.

Burl felt the jarring impact as Lockhart cut the Magellan’s drive. There was an instant of weightlessness, and then their weight reversed as the A-G drive strove to slow down the ship. Within the air lock they were outside the living space of the sphere, suspended beneath the drive chamber. Burl could see the walls of the inner sphere whirl past him, a foot away, as the living quarters rotated to shift with the gravitational change. And at that very moment, while all those inside were temporarily helpless, disaster struck.

Burl had just finished adjusting his airtight helmet, and Haines was already on his way forward to the outer shell port and the rocket guns, when there was a flash of lightning from the crippled enemy spaceship. The foe was still capable of fighting--and it had fired first--alarmingly close.

Within what seemed a split second after Burl’s eyes had registered the flash on the little viewplate, the Magellan received the full force of the mighty electronic discharge. To Burl it seemed as if a thunderclap had sounded in his ears, and as if he had been plunged into a bath of white flames. The walls of the passage sparked brilliantly, blinding light filled the air, and Burl’s body vibrated as it would to an electric shock.

He reeled wildly, catching at the walls and almost falling. In a few seconds his senses recovered, although his body was still humming from the blow and his ears were ringing. The viewplate had gone black, the lights in the air lock corridor were dark, and when he tried to gain his feet he realized that the ship now had no gravity; it was falling free without power.

Haines was slumped in the end of the corridor, with the port nearly opened. Burl pushed his way over to him and helped the groggy explorer to his feet. There was no sound, and Burl suddenly remembered that he hadn’t taken time to switch on his helmet phone. He did so and was relieved to hear Harness voice asking if he was all right.

“I’m okay,” Burl called. “Let’s get this port open. Maybe we can hit back at least once.”

Together, they turned the bolts and pushed the thick outer shell door open. Without the aid of telescopic sights they could see the shape of the Sun-tapper vessel plainly, outlined against the curtain of distant stars. Struggling not to think of what might be going on within the Magellan--their earphones registered nothing except each other--they unlimbered the long tube of the rocket launcher and aimed point-blank at the foe. Haines reached into the ammunition locker vault alongside the passageway and selected the biggest and wickedest of the available shells. He twisted the dial in the warhead and, while Burl held the aim, shoved in the rocket shell. With a press of the button, the missile roared out of the tube, racing in an arc of fire directly toward the faint vision of the other ship.

They watched with bated breath, counting the seconds, hoping not to see another blast of electrical fire. But apparently the foe had exhausted its limited resources, for the thin spidery line of rocket sparks reached out, farther and farther, until it seemed to touch the surface of the golden globe.

There was a great flare in the sky now, an outpouring of fire and hot metal. When it cleared away, the sky was empty.

Haines wearily drew the outer port shut. “Now, let’s see if we’re goners, too,” he said quietly. They sealed the outer shell and made their way along the dark passage.

Even as they were unlocking the toggles of the inner hatch, the corridor lights started to flicker. They would light up dimly, and then flicker out, light up again, flare for an instant, then die down. Someone was alive within the ship.

They got the hatch open. In the central section of the living sphere, the lights were also dim and in a few places they were completely out. They emerged and closed the hatch behind them. Only after Haines had tested the inner atmosphere and found it still pressurized, did they open their helmets and climb stiffly out of the space suits, wincing at bruises they had sustained but had not noticed until then.

The air pressure was all right, but there was a smell of burned rubber and insulation in the air. Now that their helmets were off, they could hear voices somewhere above. They found Oberfield lying unconscious, thrown to the floor by the sudden shift of the ship. They climbed into the control room. Lockhart was floating in the air near the open hatchway leading to the engine room overhead. He was calling out orders to someone who was within.