Chapter 17: Visitors!

Trudeau held tight to the launcher, but the rocket racks opened and spilled attack rockets into space. They flew in a dozen different directions. Trudeau gave vent to his feelings in colorful French.

Koa and Santos laughed so hard they had trouble collecting the scattered equipment. Rip, slowed by his crash with Trudeau, got his feet under him again.

When the asteroid turned into the sun, they still had not collected Rip’s stylus and five of the attack rockets. The space pencil was the only thing that could write on the computing board. It had to be found. “Next time around,” Rip called to the others. He then led the way full speed ahead until they reached the safety of shadow again.

Rip suspected the stylus was somewhere above the rock and probably wouldn’t return to the surface for some minutes. While he was wondering what to do, there was a chorus of yells. A rocket sped between the Planeteers and shot off into space.

“Our own rockets are after us,” Trudeau gasped. There hadn’t been time to collect them all after Rip’s unwilling attack on the Frenchman had scattered them. Now the sun was setting them off. Another flashed past, fortunately over their heads. The sun’s heat was causing them to fire unevenly.

“Three more to go,” Koa called. “Watch out!”

Only two went, and they were far enough away to offer no danger.

Santos had been fishing around in the instrument case. Suddenly he produced another stylus. “It was under the sextant,” he explained triumphantly.

“If we get through this, I’ll propose you for ten more stripes,” Rip vowed. “We’ll make you the highest ranking sergeant that ever made a private’s life miserable.”

Working slowly but more safely, Rip figured that slightly more than two and a half tubes would do the trick.

Now to fire them. That meant finding a thorium crystal properly placed and big enough. There were plenty of crystals, so that was no problem. The next step was for Kemp to cut holes with his torch, so that the thrust of the rocket fuel would be counter to the direction in which the asteroid was spinning.

Rip explained to all hands what had to be done. The burden would fall on Kemp, who would need a helper. Rip took that job himself. He took one oxygen tank from Kemp. Koa took the other, leaving the torchman with only his torch.

Then Rip took a container of chemical fuel from Bradshaw. Working while running, he lashed the two containers together with his safety line. Then he improvised a rope sling so they could hang on his back.

Kemp, meanwhile, assembled his torch and put the proper cutting nozzle in place. When he was ready, he moved over to Rip’s side and connected the torch hoses to the tanks the lieutenant carried. Kemp had the torch mechanism strapped to his own back. It was essentially a high-pressure pump that drew oxygen and fuel from the tanks and forced them through the nozzle, under terrific pressure.

When he had finished, he pressed the trigger that started the cutting torch going. The fuel ignited about a half inch in front of the nozzle. The nozzle had two holes in it, one for oxygen and the other for fuel. The holes were placed and angled to keep the flame always a half inch away, otherwise the nozzle itself would melt.

“How do we work this?” Kemp asked.

“We’ll get ahead of the others,” Rip explained. “Keep up speed until we’re running at the forward sun line. Then, when the crystal we want comes around into the shadow, we stop running and work until it spins back into the sunshine again.”

Rip estimated the axis on which the asteroid was spinning and selected a crystal in the right position. He had to be careful, otherwise their counterblast might do nothing more than start the gray planet wobbling.

He and Kemp ran ahead of the others. The Planeteers and their prisoners were running at a speed that kept them right in the middle of the dark area.

It was like running on a treadmill. The Planeteers were making good speed, but were actually staying in the same place relative to the sun’s position, keeping the turning asteroid between them and the sun.

Rip and Kemp ran forward until they were right at the sun line. Then they slowed down, holding position and waiting for the crystal they had chosen to reach them. As it came across the sun line into darkness, they stopped running and rode the crystal through the shadow until it reached the sun again. Then the two Planeteers ran back across the dark zone to meet the crystal as it came around again. There was only a few minutes’ working time each revolution.

Kemp worked fast, and the first hole deepened. Rip helped as best he could by pushing away the chunks of thorium that Kemp cut free, but it was essentially a one-man job.

As Kemp neared the bottom of the first hole, Rip reviewed his plan and realized he had overlooked something. These weren’t nuclear bombs; they were simple tubes of chemical fuel. The tubes wouldn’t destroy the hole Kemp was cutting.

He reached a quick decision and called Koa to join them. Koa appeared as Kemp pulled his torch from the hole and started running again to avoid the sun. Rip and Koa ran right along with him, crossing the dark zone to meet the crystal as it came around again.

“There’s no reason to drill three holes,” Rip explained as they ran. “We’ll use one hole for all three charges. They don’t have to be fired all at once.”

“How do we fire them?” Koa asked.

“Electrically. Who has the igniters and the hand dynamo?”

“Dowst has the igniters. One of the Connies is carrying the dynamo.”

Speaking of the Connies--Rip hadn’t seen the Consops cruiser recently. He looked up, searching for its exhaust, and finally found it, some distance away.

The Connie commander was stalemated for the time being. He couldn’t land his cruiser on a spinning asteroid, and he had no more boats. Rip thought he probably was just waiting around for any opportunity that might present itself.

The Federation cruisers should be arriving. He studied his chronometer. No, the nearest one, the Sagittarius from Mercury, wasn’t due for another ten minutes or so. He turned up his helmet communicator and ordered all hands to watch for the exhaust of a nuclear drive cruiser, then turned it down again and gave Koa instructions.

“Have Trudeau turn his load over to a Connie and collect the igniters and the dynamo. We’ll need wire, too. Who has that?”

“Another Connie.”

“Get a reel. Cut off a few hundred feet and connect the dynamo to one end and an igniter to the other.”

The crystal came around again, and Kemp got to work. Rip stood by, again reviewing all steps. They couldn’t afford to make a mistake. He had no margin for error.

Kemp finished the hole a few seconds before the crystal turned into the sunlight again. Rip told him to keep the torch going. There might be some last minute cutting to do. Then the lieutenant hurried off at an angle to where Dominico was plodding along with the fuel tubes.