Chapter 6: Rip's Planet

Rip rechecked his space suit before putting on his helmet. The air seal was intact, and his heating and ventilating units worked. He slapped his knee pouches to make sure the space knife was handy to his left hand, the pistol to his right.

Koa was already fully dressed. He handed Rip the shoulder case that contained the plotting board. Santos had taken charge of Rip’s astrogation instruments.

A spaceman was waiting with Rip’s bubble. At a nod, the spaceman slipped it on his head. Rip reached up and gave it a quarter turn. The locking mechanism clamped into place. He turned his belt ventilator control on full, and the space suit puffed out. When it was fully inflated, he watched the pressure gauge. It was steady. No leaks in suit or helmet. He let the pressure go down to normal.

Koa’s voice buzzed in his ears. “Hear me, sir?”

Rip adjusted the volume of his communicator and replied, “I hear you. Am I clear?”

“Yessir. All men dressed and ready.”

Rip made a final check. He counted his men, then personally inspected their suits. The boats were next. They were typical landing craft, shaped like rectangular boxes. There was no need for streamlining in the vacuum of space. They were not pressurized. Only men in space suits rode in the ungainly boxes.

He checked all blast tubes to make sure they were clear. There were small single tubes on each side of the craft. A clogged one could explode and blow the boat up.

Koa, he knew, had checked everything, but the final responsibility was his. In space, no officer took anyone’s word for anything that might mean lives. Each checked every detail personally.

Rip looked around and saw the Planeteers watching him. There was approval on the faces behind the clear helmets, and he knew they were satisfied with his thoroughness.

At last, certain that everything was in good order, he said quietly, “Pilots, man your boats.”

Dowst got into one and a spaceman into the other. Dowst’s boat would stay with them on the asteroid. The spaceman would bring the other back to the ship.

Commander O’Brine stepped through the valve into the boat lock. A spaceman handed him a hand communicator. He spoke into it. Rip couldn’t have heard him through the helmet otherwise. “All set, Foster?”

“Ready, sir.”

“Good. The long-range screen picked up a blip a few minutes ago. It’s probably that Connie cruiser.”

Rip swallowed. The Planeteers froze, waiting for the commander’s next words.

“Our screens are a little better than theirs, so there’s a slim chance they haven’t picked us up yet. We’ll drop you and get out of here. But don’t worry. We have your orbit fixed, and we’ll find you when the screens are clear.”

“Suppose they find us while you’re gone?” Rip said.

“It’s a chance,” O’Brine admitted. “You’ll have to take spaceman’s luck on that one. But we won’t be far away. We’ll duck behind Vesta, or another of the big asteroids, and hide so their screens won’t pick up our motion. Every now and then we’ll sneak out for a look, if the screen seems clear. If those high-vack vermin do find you, get on the landing-boat radio and yell for help. We’ll come blasting.”

He waved a hand, thumb and forefinger held together in the ancient symbol for “everything right,” then ordered, “Get flaming.” He stepped through the valve.

“Clear the lock,” Rip ordered. “Open outer valve when ready.”

He took a quick, final look around. The pilots were in the boats. His Planeteers were standing by, safety lines already attached to the boats and their belts. He moved into position and snapped his own line to a ring on Dowst’s boat. The spacemen vanished through the valve, and the massive door slid closed. The overhead lights flicked out. Rip now snapped on his belt light, and the others followed suit.

In front of the boxlike landing boats a great door slid open, and air from the lock rushed out. Rip knew it was only imagination, but he felt as though all the heat from his suit was radiating into space, chilling him to near absolute zero. Beyond the lights from their belts, he saw stars and recognized the constellation for which the space cruiser was named. A superstitious spaceman would have taken that as a good sign. Rip admitted that it was nice to see.

“Float ‘em,” he ordered.

The Planeteers gripped handholds at the entrance with one hand and launching rails on the boats with the other, then heaved. The boats slid into space. As the safety lines tightened, the Planeteers were pulled after the boat.

Rip left his feet with a little spring and shot through the door. Directly below him, the asteroid gleamed darkly in the light of the tiny sun. His first reaction was “Great Cosmos! What a little chunk of rock!” But that was because he was used to looking from the space platform at the great curve of Terra or at the big ball of the moon. Actually the asteroid was fair-sized, when compared with most of its kind.

The Planeteers hauled themselves into the boats by their safety lines. Rip waited until all were in, then pulled himself along his own line to the black square of the door. Koa was waiting to give him a hand into the craft.

The Planeteers were standing, except for Dowst. Rip had never seen an old-type railroad, or he might have likened the landing boat to a railroad boxcar. It was about the same size and shape, but had huge “windows” on both sides and in front of the pilot--windows that were not enclosed. The space-suited men needed no protection.

“Blast,” Rip ordered.

A pulse of fire spurted from the top of each boat, driving them bottom first toward the asteroid.

“Land at will,” Rip said.

The asteroid loomed large as he looked through an opening. It was rocky, but there were plenty of smooth places.

Dowst picked one. He was an expert pilot, and Rip watched him with pleasure. The exhaust from the top lessened, and fire spurted soundlessly from the bottom. Dowst balanced the opposite thrusts of the top and bottom blasts with the delicacy of a woman threading a needle. In a few moments the boat was hovering a foot above the asteroid. Dowst cut the exhausts, and Rip stepped out onto the tiny planet.

The Planeteers knew what to do. Corporal Pederson produced hardened steel spikes with ring tops. Private Trudeau had a sledge. Driving the first spike would be the hardest, because the action of swinging the hammer would propel the Planeteer like a rocket exhaust. In space, the law that every action has an equal and opposite reaction had to be remembered every moment.

Rip watched, interested in how his man would tackle the problem. He didn’t know the answer himself, because he had never driven a spike on an airless world with almost no gravity, and no one had ever mentioned it to him.

Pederson searched the gray metal with his torch and found a slender spur of thorium, perhaps two feet high, a short distance from the boat. “Here’s a hold,” he said. “Come on, Frenchy. You too, Bradshaw.”

Trudeau, carrying the sledge, walked up to the spur of rock and stood with his heels against it. Pederson sat down on the ground with his legs on either side of the spur. He stretched, hooking his heels around Trudeau’s ankles, anchoring him. With his gloves, he grabbed the seat of the Frenchman’s space suit.

Bradshaw took a spike and held it against the gray metal ground. The Frenchman swung, his hammer noiseless as it drove the tough spike. A few inches into the metal was enough. Bradshaw took a wrench from his belt, put it on the head of the spike, and turned it. Below the surface, teeth on the spike bit into the metal. It would hold.

The rest was easy. The spike was used to anchor Trudeau while he drove another, at his longest reach. Then the second spike became his anchor, and so on, until enough spikes had been set to lace the boat down against any sudden shock.

The boat piloted by the spaceman was tied to the one that would remain, and the Planeteers floated its supplies through a window. It took only a few moments, with Planeteers forming a chain from inside the boat to a spot a little distance away. The crates weighed almost nothing, but still retained their mass. Once their inertia was overcome, they moved from one man to the next like ungainly balloons.

“All clear, sir,” Koa called.

Rip stepped inside and made a quick inspection. The box was empty except for the spaceman pilot. He put a hand on the pilot’s shoulder. “On your way, Rocky. Thanks.”

“You’re welcome, sir.” The pilot added, “Watch out for high vack.”

Rip and Koa stepped out and walked a little distance away. Santos and Pederson cast the landing boat adrift and shoved it away from the anchored boat. In a moment fire spurted from the bottom tube, spreading over the dull metal and licking at the feet of the Planeteers.