Chapter IV: Part 4

The medic shook his head gravely. “He doesn’t look too good to me, sir,” he replied. “He’s got a lot of burns and he swallowed plenty of smoke. He’ll be a lucky guy if he pulls through.”

“He knew this might happen when he took that welding torch down there,” Rob murmured. “But he knew the job had to be done.” He coughed.

“Better let me check you over too, lieutenant,” Harry said. “You swallowed some smoke yourself.”

“I’ll be all right,” Rob said. “I’ll have the space surgeon look at me on Titan, though.”

Rob went back to join the others. When he told them the unfavorable news about Mort, a gloomy silence settled over the compartment. Mort had been well liked, having quickly become a friend to all except Clay Gerard.

“I checked the hold when the smoke lifted,” Lieutenant Swenson said, breaking the oppressive stillness. “Mort’s torch must have touched off latent gases in the chamber. There’s some charred machinery down there but no real damage from the explosion. Fox said the ship’s moving all right again.”

Clay seemed ashamed to gather here with the others. He was lingering in the corridor looking out the port. Rob had begun to feel sorry for the young fellow whose quarrel with Mort had led to such tragic results. Rob went out to join him.

“Nearly time to take to landing couches,” Rob remarked as he saw the curved, mistbound world that was Titan.

“Yes, sir,” Clay answered, without spirit.

“Did you hear me tell the others about Mort’s condition?” Rob asked.

Clay barely nodded. “If he dies, I will be the one who killed him.”

“It’s not your fault that he was hurt,” Rob soothed. “He knew what he was getting into when he went down into the hold with the torch.”

“But if we hadn’t fought he could have prevented the blowout,” Clay argued. “I heard him say it.”

“If there’s to be any blame for the accident, it’ll rest with the inspection team back on Luna which should have found the weakened temper of the chamber. They have stress gauges to detect such things, and they should have found it, particularly on a ship whose mission is so important.”

Clay smiled wanly. “I know you’re just trying to make me feel better, lieutenant. The truth of the matter is that I’m everything Lieutenant Swenson said I am. I know now what sort of unselfish records he said you’d made. It was just like the one Mort made when he went down into the hold, knowing the risk he was taking.”

“I think, given time, you’ll make a good spaceman,” Rob said.

Clay’s unhappy face studied the approaching world outside for several moments in silence until there came the pilot’s report of altitude and Rob knew it was time to strap down. Lieutenant Fox switched in the robot pilot that would make the landing and joined his companions on the row of degravity couches in another compartment. All buckled the plastic belts across their bodies and yielded themselves to the discomfort of swiftly cutting speed.

As soon as the ship landed, Rob unbuckled and, with Harry Goode, hurried to the compartment where Mort had been placed. Harry took the injured man’s pulse and told Rob that it was weak.

“We’ll get him to the infirmary immediately,” Rob said and went to the radio nook just off the pilot’s nest. He put through a call to the Space Command headquarters.

“General Carmichael speaking,” came a firm, booming voice over the amplifier. “Come in, X-500.”

“This is Lieutenant Allison, sir,” Rob spoke. “We’ve had an accident aboard and a man has been badly hurt. Will you send out a stretcher for him?”

“Certainly,” came the reply. “What was the man’s duty?”

“Mechanic 101, sir,” Rob answered.

“We’ve got a replacement for him,” the general said. “While we’re on the subject of bad news, Allison, I’ll give you mine.”

“What’s that, sir?” Rob asked anxiously.

“Just that the people of Earth are closer than ever to panic stage,” said General Carmichael. “A switchboard operator on Luna half guessed our secret and when she telephoned someone on Earth the operators back there picked up the message. You won’t have much time for layover here, Allison. You’ll have to be off almost immediately so that we can report success of Operation Big Boy as soon as possible.”

Rob suddenly went cold with dread and disappointment. Dulcie Gerard, whom he had considered one of the squarest persons he had ever met, had suddenly destroyed his faith in her completely. It made Rob wonder if making themselves unpopular wasn’t a confirmed Gerard trait.

Some minutes later, Rob and his crewmates solemnly followed the stretcher bearers out of the ship. Through the plastic airtight case Rob could see the still-as-death figure of the burr-headed mechanic who had risked his life for his friends. The party trooped across the ice slick that lay between the X-500 and Space Command headquarters on Titan.

General Carmichael met the group inside the air lock of the headquarters. His small, sharp eyes looked out from under thick gray brows at the identically dressed men before him, streams of condensed vapor rolling off their glossy suits.

Rob pulled off his helmet and advanced. “I’m Allison, sir,” he said, offering his hand.

The wiry general shook hands briskly. “Glad to meet you, Allison.” He frowned. “We’ve got a lot to do, so we may as well get started.”

General Carmichael led them into his private office.

“Your mechanic replacement will be over shortly,” the officer told them when they were seated. “His name is Olney. A good man. You’re lucky he was available. We’re kind of shorthanded here and really can’t spare anyone. None of us on the project thought your crew would have to be replaced at this final stage, but of course accidents can’t be avoided.”

Rob glanced over at Clay Gerard. Rob thought he detected a flicker of hope in the youth’s eyes. Rob pondered deeply, wondering if he should go ahead with the replacement of Clay as he had said he would do. But it wouldn’t be easy to explain Clay to General Carmichael. Giving the appearance to Rob of being a strict old-timer, the chief officer did not look to be too understanding a person on a matter such as this. Then too, he had said he simply had no other men to spare.

And yet Rob knew he must consider his other crewmen. If Clay were unreliable, what right had he to risk their lives just to give a mixed-up young fellow another chance? Rob didn’t know what to do, so he looked to his friends for advice. He resolved to act on their judgment, since they were older men. Rob caught Lieutenant Swenson’s eye. To his wordless inquiry, the navigator-radiation officer nodded. Lieutenant Fox did the same. The silent vote had given the impetuous Clay Gerard another chance, and for some reason Rob was glad that it had come out this way. Clay, who had been watching the other raptly, knew he had been reinstated, and he smiled his gratitude.

General Carmichael handed each of them pencil-like tubes which he told them they would wear in their upper blouse pockets at all times during the flight.

“These instruments record cosmic-ray radiation,” the general said. “As you know, a concentration of these rays will cause agonizing death. You will be the first crew ever to carry C-bombs on a mission because fortunately we’ve never had to use them before.”

Less than an hour and a half later, the Cetus X-500 was ready to go. General Carmichael replaced the charts given Rob by General Forester with ones carrying figures for the accelerated moment of departure.

Rob considered Bruce Olney a capable fill-in for the valiant Mort Haines, if looks were any criterion. He was a slender, straw blond, with intelligent eyes. He wore a miniature good-luck horse-shoe charm around his neck.

A report from the infirmary showed that Mort Haines was still in serious condition. Rob saw Clay Gerard wince as he heard the news. Clay had been an exceedingly quiet individual since the accident to the mechanic, a different person entirely. His blatant self-confidence had been whittled down strikingly to a brooding reserve.

When the crew of the X-500 was already in the ship and about to blast off, General Carmichael spoke his final disturbing speech over their radio, “I’ve just had another report from General Forester. The people are mobbing the White House demanding to know what it is that threatens their lives. The President doesn’t believe he can hold them off much longer.” The general’s tone became grimmer and more emotional as he concluded. “Operation Big Boy has got to be a success, Allison. There’s no two ways about it. I want the next message you send to give the good news that we will immediately broadcast throughout the system. Good luck and God be with you.”

The six of them stared at one another soberly as the final words were spoken. The full enormity of their duty seemed to have struck them just now for the first time. Rob choked down the lump that pressed up into his throat. He took a full breath, readying himself, then gave his first command.

“Blast-off couches,” he spoke quietly. “Prepare for launching.”

When the roaring thunder of the blast-off was behind them and the rocket ship was grasping for the stars, Clay unbuckled his straps and turned to Rob.

“I don’t believe Dulcie spread that report about our project, lieutenant,” he said. “She wouldn’t lose her head. Not her. She’s the calmest one in the family. Besides, she’s a—a—”

“A Gerard?” Rob supplied, smiling faintly.

Clay flushed. “I guess I haven’t really changed, have I?” he said bleakly.

Rob’s brows furrowed. “I’d like to believe she didn’t do it too. But she’s the switchboard operator on Luna. She was on when we left. Who else could it have been?”

“There still must have been someone else,” Clay persisted. “I know my sister too well. She would have known what would happen if she had spoken openly.”

After setting the ship on course and under full rocket thrust, Rob and Lieutenant Swenson took time to study the elaborate firing mechanism in the navigator’s compartment that would send the bombs on their way a few hours from now. The electroscope which gave the reading on the R-cloud was located nearby. The gauge had shown consistent increase ever since the blast-off from Titan, indicating that they were drawing closer to the cosmic menace all the time.

Within the next half hour tension had grown nearly to fever pitch, and yet there was still some time before the crucial zero hour. Rob found himself pacing restlessly about the navigation compartment. Lieutenant Swenson was rattling keys in his pocket, and Rob guessed that the others must also be similarly tightened up.

Clay’s grinning face appeared at the door of the navigator’s cabin. The young cadet looked as calm as if he were on nothing more than a sight-seeing tour. He carried a tray on which sealed containers filled with lavender drinks were held by magnetism.

“How about some palm-berry tea, gentlemen?” he said, setting the tray down on a magnetic table.

Lieutenant Swenson smiled at the youth whom he had tongue-lashed on the previous flight. “You’re a lifesaver, Clay,” he said, picking up a container and beginning to suck on the connected straw.

Palm-berry tea was a tasty beverage made from a dwarf Venusian swamp plant. It was a splendid sedative for “space nerves” and was always carried on long voyages. Under the harried circumstances of their blast-off, Rob had forgotten to have a supply of the tea put aboard.

“Where did you get this?” Rob asked, taking a glass.

“I knew it would come in handy, sir, when our stomachs got to knotting up,” Clay replied, “and so I got a box from the commissary just before coming aboard. Every crew has to have a cook, so I elected myself.”

What a change from the self-centered young fellow he had first met, Rob thought. It was amazing that Clay Gerard, who before must be first in everything, was now satisfied at being what he called a “cook.”

Clay distributed drinks to the rest of the crew. In a little while the epidemic of jitters had subsided almost completely.

The minutes dragged on as the Cetus X-500 sped toward the bright star Procyon and the malignancy it was believed to have cast into space. When the crew spotted little Pluto plodding his lonely way through the empty deeps, they knew they were at the edge of the solar system.

Another hour slipped by, and Lieutenant Swenson began lining up the target on the ground glass of his visi-screen table. The electroscope showed a high count, and the meters Rob and the radiation officer wore were also showing the mounting ray penetration from the “hot” weapons below the insulated flooring.

“Only a few minutes to go, Rob,” Lieutenant Swenson said, studying his screen. “Better check your bomb release.”

Rob checked and found it ready to go. His fingers itched to pull the lever. Sensing the approach of zero moment, the others drifted into the compartment. The robot pilot was driving the ship, and even Lieutenant Fox had come in. A dozen eyes pored silently over the screen table.

Rob could count every tick of his watch. As the final minutes slipped away, he withdrew from the circle and went over to the bomb release. His hand was clammy as it palmed the smooth metal lever.

“Steady, Rob,” Lieutenant Swenson spoke in a dramatic whisper. “A few minutes more—twelve—nine—”

The compartment was silent as a tomb except for the soft throb of the ship’s power plant. Rob’s eyes drifted out the side port, and the stars out there dazzled him.

“Three—two—one—_fire_!”

Rob’s hand shoved forward. A muted rumble came from the floor. The noise swelled to a full-bodied roar. Then there was a banshee-like scream, and Rob knew the first bomb had flung itself into space.

Lieutenant Swenson counted off five more seconds, and then Rob sent the second bomb on its way. This happened four more times, and each time Rob heard the final shriek as the missile cast itself into the vacuum. Rob didn’t hear the last bomb scream. His ears were ringing too much from the clamor of the previous ones.

When it was all over, the purr of the power plant began dissipating the throbbing ring in Rob’s ears. He felt a tremendous relief now that the job was done.

“How long before we’ll see the bursts?” he asked Lieutenant Swenson.

“Not for hours,” was the reply. “Don’t forget, the missiles have a long way to go even though they’re speeding fast as blazes.”

“Then we won’t know until then whether we’re successful?” Harry asked.

“That’s right,” the navigator said.

Rob checked the compartment cosmic-ray counter and his own pencil meter. “The radiation ought to start diminishing now that the load is gone,” he said.

He was mistaken, he discovered later, when the ship had been swung about on its gyros and was heading homeward. The radiation had begun increasing, in fact.

“I don’t understand it,” Rob said worriedly. “There’s nothing down below to make the radiation concentration rise. If this keeps up, we won’t last out the trip back.”

Minutes later, as the concentration continued to build up, Rob knew there had to be something down there that was giving off the dangerous emanations. There was no other explanation that he could think of.

“Bruce,” Rob said to the new mechanic, “can you check the bomb chamber without direct exposure?”

The mechanic nodded. “There’s an antiradiation compartment up forward with an insulated window where I can take a look at it.”

As Bruce left the room to check, Rob thought of something. “Did any of you hear the scream of that last bomb leaving the chamber?” he asked.

When no one said anything, he continued, “I think I’ve got the answer. That last bomb must have jammed and didn’t come out.”

His guess proved substantially correct. When Bruce returned, he reported that the heat of the bomb racing along its launching track had fused with part of the track so that both hung out of the bomb hatch and were being carried along with the ship.

“We’re lucky those bombs were made to go off only on contact with the powerful omega rays in the R-cloud,” Rob spoke grimly, “or we’d be somewhere up in the Milky Way by now! We’ve got to get that bomb away from the ship before its radiation kills us.”

“Dropping that bomb off isn’t going to be any sweet job,” Bruce commented. “But being the mechanic, it ought to fall to me.”

“Hold on,” Rob cut in. “It’s a job any of us can do. It’ll take more courage than skill to cut the track off with an oxygen torch. By fastening the torch on the end of one of our emergency insulated rods, the operator can work at a distance with less chance of radiation exposure.”

Lieutenant Swenson volunteered for the job, then Clay. Rob knew they had no time to wrangle over who was going to do it. Lieutenant Fox suggested drawing straws, and everyone agreed this was the fair method of deciding. Rob got six matches and broke one off shorter than the rest. Then he held them out for drawing. Bruce drew first and revealed a long one. Clay drew the next one and said simply, “You can stop drawing.”

Rob was confident Clay could handle the job all right, for use of the acetylene torch was emphasized in cadet training.

The youth was assisted into space gear, and the cutting torch was fastened to the end of the insulated rod. A crude shield was also fashioned from some of the insulation of the ship so as to further protect Clay from the bomb’s radiation. Even with all this, however, there was no small amount of risk. But Clay seemed happy to have drawn the job and went about his preparations lightheartedly.

“Whatever you do,” was Rob’s final warning, “don’t get the fire from your torch onto the bomb or none of us will live to tell about it.”

Clay left the ship through a side air lock, carrying his odd equipment and secured to the ship by a length of space chain so that he could not drift off into space. The eyes of the crew followed him through the port near the door as he crawled along the hull and downward toward the bomb rack. Then they lost sight of him.

As they turned from the port, Harry Goode stooped and picked up a match from the floor. “This is Clay’s match,” he said, holding it up. “I saw him drop it.”

It was a _long_ match.

“That tricky guy!” Rob muttered, with a wry grin. But what he really said in his mind was, “That _great_ guy!”

“He sure is anxious to make good,” Lieutenant Swenson said with admiration.

Bruce led them toward the bow of the ship where they could see Clay work on the damaged bomb hatch. They moved along a narrow aisle lined with throbbing turbines and finally down an aluminum catwalk, at the bottom of which was the doubly insulated inspection chamber containing a large observation window that looked out onto the skin of the craft.

The men crowded around the quartz port and watched Clay make his circuitous approach to the bomb hatch. Rob admired his skill in staying at the full taut length of his space chain so as to keep the maximum distance between himself and the “hot” chamber. Clay drifted like a feather in the weightless void, handling his equally light equipment with ease as he brought it into position.

Rob imagined the vacuum out there to be fairly crackling with radioactivity and potential death rays. Clay had known they were there too. Yet he had gone out willingly, risking his life.

Keeping his shield deftly in front of him, Clay lit his torch with his free hand, and the brilliant arc light burst like a nova on the eyes of the watchers. Clay next shoved the insulated rod, to which the torch was attached, toward the hatch. Slowly, cautiously, he moved the tool in closer. Only a short way below hung the gray cartridge that was the C-bomb, and the warped track that dipped out of the hatch and downward.

Without a tremor, Clay’s hand guided the burning instrument to within inches of the top of the bomb. Rob shuddered to think what fury could be unleashed should the torch drift too close to the bomb.

“That boy’s got what it takes,” Lieutenant Swenson murmured, his subdued voice sounding strangely loud in the deathly quiet. “He knows what’s at stake, but he’s not excited.”

Clay got the flame against the track which was the only thing holding the C-bomb to the ship. Then he began the slow, labored process of severing the tough titanium alloy. The intense heat of the oxygen-fed torch turned the metal red hot. Then another danger came into the picture.

“Can the heat from the track set off the bomb?” Harry put the danger into words.

“It could,” Rob replied grimly. “It probably won’t, but it could.”

During the suspenseful minutes that followed, Rob heard one sucking sound after another as those around him breathed irregularly. The hot touch of the men’s bodies against him betrayed their tension, their prayerful hopes.

“Easy does it, Clay,” Rob thought. “Just a little more, and the track will be cut through.”

The scarlet track and the blazing spot of the torch seemed to sear a hole right into Rob’s eyeballs. “How can Clay stand it this long himself?” he wondered. “His nerves must be of steel wire, his pupils of quartz lenses.”

“The track is cut through!” someone finally exclaimed exultantly.

Yet even with the worst part behind him, Clay didn’t get overconfident. As the bomb hung there weightless in space, Clay carefully withdrew the rod and the torch from its dangerous proximity to the bomb. Then he shook off the torch until it began drifting away from him, whence it would travel unchecked until it passed into the gravitation field of some celestial body. Next Clay gently brought the rod end against the bomb and shoved ever so lightly against it. Then it too began creeping away slowly into the black deeps, never to be seen again.

“Whew!” Bruce gasped, and Rob could sense the relief of tension in those around him.

Clay discarded the rod then but kept his shield in position as he made his way around the radioactive bomb hatch and back toward the air lock where he had left the ship.

“He has discarded his hot equipment,” Lieutenant Swenson said as Clay moved out of their field of vision. “Just like a natural-born spaceman—he didn’t forget a thing.”

When Clay had been helped into the ship with unnecessary care, each of his shipmates gave him an exuberant slap on the back and covered him with words of praise that fairly inundated him. Rob could see a grin a light year wide on the boy’s face and the trace of tears too as he realized he had been accepted as one of them again.

Lieutenant Swenson summed it all up when he said, “You’re an all right guy, Clay.”

Harry tore off Clay’s space suit, which was discarded, and began giving him all sorts of tests for radiation exposure. But Clay had protected himself well and was “clean.”

The invisible peril within the ship began slacking off steadily, and later Lieutenant Swenson announced that the moment of the first bomb’s strike was at hand. The six gathered about the lookout refractor telescope in the ship’s stern which had carefully been directed upon the determined spot of impact at their rear.

Rob was the first to see it through the prism eyepiece. Against the unchanging star patterns there was suddenly a brilliant flare like a ton of magnesium bursting into flame before his eyes. It blinded him for a moment with its radiance, even though there was a filter over the field lens.

“We hit it!” he breathed thankfully and turned away so that the others might see the succeeding strikes.

To make sure the destruction was complete, Lieutenant Swenson pored over the electroscope for a long time afterward and finally made a significant announcement. “Operation Big Boy is a success,” he said softly. “Not only has the cloud been broken up, but its remnants will pass far out of range of the solar system. Rob, you can radio the folk back home and give them the good news.”

Rob lost no time in getting to the set and pouring out the happy tidings to General Forester on Luna.

Later Rob learned of the repercussions: “The people in most quarters are stunned to know what could have happened to them,” the Space Command officer told him. “But all danger of panic is over. People are leaving the streets and going back to their homes and loved ones—and to church. It’s a grand victory, Rob, your greatest of all!”

“It’s not my victory, general,” Rob replied. “It belongs equally to the men with me—Fox, Swenson, Olney, Goode, and Gerard. They’re great guys, sir, all of them.” Rob had started to mention Mort among the names and inquired how he was.

“General Carmichael radioed that he has passed his crisis and is conscious,” was the gratifying answer. “The doctor says he’ll make it all right. Rob, Miss Gerard is anxious to talk to you and her brother.”

Rob couldn’t understand how Dulcie could still be on the job if she had committed the serious indiscretion of exposing the secret flight. This prompted Rob to ask the general about it. The chief officer replied that it hadn’t been Dulcie Gerard but a temporary substitute who had taken over for her. As a matter of fact, Dulcie had been very angry at her friend for what she had done.

Dulcie was allowed to talk to Rob, and the first thing she said was, “Can I speak to Clay?”

“He’s coming down the hall,” Rob told her.

“Tell me,” she said, “how did Clay do on his first assignment?”

Rob paused a moment, then replied, “Somebody lit the fuse under him like you said, Dulcie. He didn’t blow into little pieces, though. The explosion knocked the worst out of him but left behind something fine and unselfish.”

“I’m so glad I could cry!” the girl blurted.

“Here he is now,” Rob said. “I’ll let him tell you himself.”

Clay took the mike from Rob. Rob watched in admiration as Clay modestly told her the whole story, minimizing his own glory. Clay might be the last of the male Gerards, he thought, but he would certainly not be forgotten. As long as men had breath to speak, they would talk about the real hero of Operation Big Boy—and how he almost came to miss the trip altogether.

THE GHOST SHIP OF SPACE

Rock Merrill looked interestedly at the man who had introduced himself as Tony Kalmus. He had told the young former cadet that he had come all the way from Earth to see him.

“You flatter me,” Rock said.

“There’s more to it than that,” the man assured him. He was still fairly young, although his blond hair was balding on top. He shifted his heavyweight frame, that filled the chair snugly, but with deliberate slowness dug through the inner pockets of his blue jacket and brought out a folded piece of paper.

At that moment Shep Dubois came into the dormitory aboard the space service station that was 25,000 miles above Earth. Centrifugal force, provided by the rotation of the station, gave an artificial gravity so that its occupants could walk about normally.

“What’s up, Rock?” Shep asked.

“I don’t know,” Rock answered. “I just got a message over the wall speaker that this Mr. Kalmus had come to the station to see me.”

Rock introduced the two formally. Then Kalmus gave Rock the piece of folded paper. Rock opened it up. It was a photostatic copy of a torn blank scrap of paper. Rock studied it for a moment, his heart gradually increasing its beat as he unconsciously felt that he was on the verge of a big discovery. The ragged edges of the photographed scraps looked strangely familiar. Then suddenly the answer came to him in a rush that sent his blood throbbing hard through his temples.

“I can’t believe it!” he exclaimed. “It’s the missing scrap from the _Sagittarius_!”

“You mean that after twenty years it’s turned up?” Shep said in amazement. “Now you may be able to find the _Northern Cross_, Rock!”

“That’s the reason I’m here,” Kalmus said. “I’ll leave you the photostat to compare with your own scraps, Merrill, and then you’ll know I have the missing piece for certain.”

“If you do have it, Mr. Kalmus, I’ll be indebted to you forever,” Rock said enthusiastically. “Ever since I first wanted to be a spaceman it’s been my ambition to look for my dad’s lost ship. But how did you know where to find me?”

“I asked around. Your mother told me over the phone back on Earth that she was pretty sure you had the scraps with you and that you treasured them as if they were gold.”

“I do,” Rock admitted, staring out one of the oblong ports of the dorm at the salt-and-pepper background of interstellar space. “They’re the last link I have with my father. I never saw him.”

Kalmus got up. “When you’re convinced I’ve got what you want and you’re ready to listen to a proposition about locating your dad’s lost ship, just let me know. I’m in Room 38, Deck B, overhead.”

When Kalmus had gone, Rock went to his dresser and began searching a drawer. “The box with the scraps is in one of these.”

“I still find all this hard to believe!” Shep said. “And I don’t see how Kalmus could have gotten hold of the missing scraps. They were supposed to have been destroyed with the _Sagittarius_ except for the ones they salvaged for you.”

“I’m not worried about that now, Shep!” Rock told him. “The main thing is to fit the puzzle together and find the answer that I’ve wanted to know all my life—the location of the _Northern Cross_ and its treasure ore.”

Rock’s father, Victor Merrill, had been a space surgeon accompanying a research expedition to Venus before Rock was born. Mineralogy was Dr. Merrill’s hobby, and while on the planet he had come across a curious mineral in a cave. Returning to Earth, he’d had the sample analyzed. The mineral was alconite, a very scarce and valuable component of an alloy used in the construction of radioactivity shields. Told that a space-ship load of the light mineral could bring him a fortune, Dr. Merrill set out again for Venus with his own expedition, financed from his life savings, planning to build a satellite hospital with the proceeds of the venture.

Dr. Merrill’s ship, the _Northern Cross_, had landed on Venus, and a load of the mineral was stocked aboard the ship. But then disaster overtook the party, the first of many tragic events that were to follow. A landslide sealed off the mine, burying most of Dr. Merrill’s crew. The four remaining, including Dr. Merrill himself, blasted off for Earth, but not having enough experienced men to adequately run the vessel, the ship was wrecked by an explosion. An SOS was radioed to a freighter bound for Venus, the _Sagittarius_. The radio operator made a note of the _Northern Cross_’s position, but shortly afterward, the _Sagittarius_ itself, in a hurry to reach the stricken _Northern Cross_ and with a faulty radar set, collided with an emergency fuel buoy floating in space.

When later ships salvaged the wreck of the _Sagittarius_, scraps of the radio operator’s note were found, but not enough of it to establish the “fix” of the still missing _Northern Cross_. These scraps had later been turned over to Rock and held by him ever since. He had stubbornly clung to the fragments in the wild hope that some day he might obtain some other clue to the location of his father’s ship.

The last message from the radio operator of the _Northern Cross_ had reported that the ship had lost its power of navigation after falling into a perpetual orbit about Venus. Therefore Rock and his mother had known for years that Victor Merrill’s ghost ship had become a satellite of the planet Venus.

“Here it is, Shep!” Rock exclaimed, pulling a flat tin box out of his dresser drawer.

They eagerly took the box and the photostat over to a table. Rock unlocked the container and gently removed the scorched and yellowed fragment that had been pieced together with transparent tape. He fitted the section against the ragged edges of the full-size pattern.

“It fits!” Rock said.

Swiftly the coming events passed hopefully before his mind’s eye. He visualized a search for the _Northern Cross_, a search that might yet bring a fulfillment of Dr. Merrill’s unselfish dream.

“I wonder what Mr. Kalmus wants out of this?” Rock mused.

“A share of the treasure, I’d guess,” Shep replied.

“Of course we can’t be absolutely sure of finding the _Northern Cross_, even with the exact ‘fix,’” Rock said. “If it changed its flight path after sending the SOS, there’s not much hope. But if it held its same orbit, as Dad’s radio operator reported, we should be able to locate it.”

“What do you say we listen to Kalmus’ proposition?” Shep suggested.

“The sooner the better!” Rock agreed.

As they went down the corridor, they met Johnny Colfax.

“One of these days I’m going to tell those guys what they can do with their old job, especially that little worm, Mugger!” Johnny complained. “I’m tired of all this backbreaking stuff and his fussing at us all the time!”

“I think we’re all tired of it, Johnny,” Rock sympathized.

Johnny was one of seven of them who had accepted work on the servicing station after their washout from school. Since they knew they could never go into space in the smart livery of the Space Command, this seemed to be the next best thing. But the boys had soon tired of the glamour of being out in the deeps and the hard work, and most of them were ready to go meekly back home to Earth.

“Maybe before long,” Rock told his discouraged friend, “all of us will be able to tell the big boys where to head in.”

“What do you mean?” Johnny asked.

“Come along and see,” Shep invited.

Johnny made a wry face. “I’m not in the mood to see anything now. It’s the sack for me and ten solid hours of sleep!”

Rock and Shep looked for Kalmus’ room on Deck B. As they passed a long corridor port, they saw the busy outside activity of the servicing station. They saw big clumsy-looking astroliners and streamlined, needle-prowed “atmosphere” ships approaching and leaving the docks of the octagon satellite after repairs or refueling. Smaller ferry craft darted back and forth between the vessels like pilot fish in the company of great sharks.

The boys located Kalmus’ room and found him waiting for them as though he had known they would be along. There was another man present. He looked like a walking skeleton, with thick black brows and hands like hairy tarantulas. Kalmus said his name was Jack Judas and that he was a close friend.

“My scraps match your photostat, Mr. Kalmus,” Rock said. “What is your proposition?”

“I’ll get right to the point. We go on an expedition to look for the _Northern Cross_ and split the value of the cargo if we find it.”

Rock nodded. “That’s reasonable enough.”

“I can rent an old ship cheaply,” Kalmus went on. “Got a friend in the business over on Satellite 7, a space supply moon. He showed me just the thing for us, atomic drive and all, equipped to carry eleven men. I can dig up a crew too. How much money can you get to pay for your share?”

“That will take some figuring,” Rock said, “and I’ll have to talk over the proposition with the other fellows.”

“I told you I’d furnish the crew,” Kalmus said, with a trace of annoyance. “However, if you want to bring some of your buddies along, I guess that’s your business.”

“We’ve been together all through Academy training,” Rock told him, “and that’s too long a time to split up now.”

Rock was able to get all his six friends together to talk over the plan, even rousing a complaining Johnny Colfax out of his brief sleep. All were in favor of making the voyage.

“I’ll split my share equally among us,” Rock said.

“Nix on that, Rock,” tall, wiry Hugh Blankenship objected. “It’s your dad’s ship and we know about his dream to build a satellite hospital. Besides, you’re the one who’s been holding the clue to its location all these years.”

All of them nodded.

“We can talk that over later,” Rock answered. “Now we’ve got to decide how we’re going to split expenses with Kalmus.”

The boys had accumulated tidy sums while working at the space station. Even Rock had a fair amount of savings despite the fact that he sent much of his monthly check home to his mother. Space pay was high, and the boys had had no place to spend their money. But of course it cost a lot of money to take a ship out into space. The boys figured that the best they could do would not be quite enough. Rock told them that he had an idea Kalmus would advance them some on their share. It was likely that he wouldn’t have come this far without being sure the trip could be financed.

Rock next told them about Kalmus wanting to furnish most of the crew.

“If all of us go,” said little Sparky Finn, with the bristly hair, “then Kalmus will have to limit the men he wants to take. It’s a simple matter of arithmetic—seven of us and four of them.”

“I’ll tell him that,” Rock agreed. “We all go or none of us goes. I’ll insist on it.”

“Do you reckon we can trust Kalmus?” Ed Somerton asked.

“He looks all right to me,” Shep said, “although of course you can’t trust first impressions sometimes.”

“He looks all right to me too,” Rock agreed. “But just the same, while we’re waiting to get the ship outfitted, I think I’ll check his references at central identification headquarters on Earth.”

Just as they were going to break up, there came a sharp rap on the dormitory door. Before the visitor could be invited in, he flung the door open and strode inside.

Rock flared at this invasion of their privacy, especially when the newcomer proved to be a person disliked by all of them. He was Carl Mugger, their immediate supervisor. Behind his back he was known as “Yap” because of his shrewish tongue.

“What have we got here—a tea party?” he blurted.

“No, a private discussion,” Rock answered evenly, trying to control his temper.

“Three of you are supposed to be on duty,” Mugger went on. “You fellows think you’re on a vacation or something?”

“We were only doing routine work in the solar mirror relay.” Hugh spoke for Ed, Leo Avery, and himself, who were the three Mugger had been talking about. “We’ve only been here a few minutes.”

“What do you think would happen to the station if I took off any time I wanted to?” he demanded, drawing his short body up to its full height.

Getting no reply, Mugger ranted on. “I’ve stood just about all I’m going to from you guys! The next time one of you goofs off I’m going to have you sent back so fast Earthward your heads will buzz!”

He glared at each of them in turn.

Shep stepped forward, a full half head taller than the little man, his face reddening from the fury mounting in him. “I don’t know about the others, Mr. Mugger, but I’m fed up with this station and you too!”

Mugger’s jaw muscles twitched and his eyes flashed. “Do all of you feel this way?” he snapped.

The others hesitated. It wouldn’t be the smartest thing to cut oneself off from his job 25,000 miles above Earth and with no other work in sight, but neither could a fellow let his buddy stand alone in something on which all of them were in sympathy. Rock made the first move.

“I feel that way,” he said boldly, and the others backed him up.

“You fellows are through!” Mugger said coldly. “You may as well get your things together and be ready to take the next ferry ship going Earthward!” He turned and went out.

Shep’s natural color was beginning to return. A look of penitence came over his thoughtful face. “I’m sorry, fellows. I—I just couldn’t help it.”

“It was bound to happen, Shep,” Rock consoled him. “But it does sort of throw us in with Kalmus in a hurry, and it means we can’t afford to talk up to him quite as strongly as we might have otherwise.”

“He doesn’t have to know we’ve been fired,” Leo said.

“Let’s hope he doesn’t,” Rock answered with some concern. “Otherwise he’ll set his own terms, and we’ll just have to take them. Remember, we don’t even have enough money to pay our share of the expenses, either.”

Rock and Shep went to see Kalmus immediately. Jack Judas was present, as well as another man. He was squatty and sturdily built, with hair as black as the Coalsack. Kalmus introduced him as Ben Spooner.

Rock outlined the terms he and his friends had drawn up. Kalmus listened to them thoughtfully and impassively.

“I could bring some experienced men if you’d let me have my way,” Kalmus said when Rock was through. “You fellows are pretty young, and on top of that you are washouts.”

“We didn’t wash out until the finals,” Ed told him. “We still learned a lot about piloting and navigation in our training.”

“Yeah,” Leo agreed, “you don’t have to worry about us getting the ship there and back.”

When Kalmus saw how determined all the fellows were to go, he shrugged. “I guess you know what you can do,” he said. “You’ll have to take care of most of the running of the ship. I’ll have with me Ben, Jack, and Mumbly. That will make a crew of eleven, the ship’s capacity.”

“Then we’re agreed on that,” Rock said.

“Judas knows a little about piloting and can help out if necessary,” Kalmus went on. “He’s got a brother who’s first mate on a space freighter and has flighted with him a few times. Pegg and Spooner and I were steward’s helpers on a few space flights some years back. When can you fellows be ready to go?”

“The sooner the better,” Rock answered.

“In a few hours?”

Rock straightened in surprise. They could hardly make their plans in that short time.

“I’m in a hurry to get started,” Kalmus said. “You fellows turn over to me all the money you can get together, and we can settle for the rest when we get back. I wouldn’t even hold you up for this but the dock fee and license have to be paid in cash before we leave.”

“Hey, wait a minute!” Rock protested, with a laugh. “I think you’re underestimating the work we’ve got to do. We’ll have to make a trip back to Earth and get the ship and supplies lined up first. That alone will take much more than a few hours! It’s twenty-five million miles to Venus at the closest approach.”

“I’ve checked on Venus with the chief astronomer on the observatory satellite,” Kalmus declared, “and we’re in the best position if we start as soon as possible. I’ve also taken care of everything else, and I’m still ready to leave in a few hours.”

Rock shook his head as if he still could not believe this. “You realize there’s a chance we might not find the _Northern Cross_, don’t you?” Rock warned.

Kalmus’ face grew taut. “I guess that’s the chance that all of us will have to take.”

He headed for the door. “Come with me, please.”

He led them down the long companionways to Hangar 7 on the outer rim of the station. Supplies were being loaded here through the station air lock into a globular nonatmospheric ship that was anchored by its magnetic grapples to the side of the station.

Tony Kalmus waved his hand at the activity and smiled at the surprised faces of Rock and Shep. “There’s our ship,” he told them. “Meet the _Dog Star_, fellows. She’s all ready to go treasure hunting!”

The little space ship _Dog Star_ was on its way into deep space with its crew of eleven. The ex-cadets had sent messages home telling of their departure. But Kalmus had been in such a hurry to leave that they did not even have time to wait for replies. Nor had Rock had time to check on Kalmus’ references back on Earth.

Rock could appreciate the need for haste, however. Unless they left when they did, Venus would have moved out of its most favorable position, and it would have required much more expenditure of fuel to overtake her later.

It would be several weeks before the _Dog Star_ approached the misty planet and—it was hoped—the twenty-year orbit of the ghost ship _Northern Cross_.

“Well, we’re on our way, fellows,” Rock remarked to his young friends who were gathered with him in the navigation room looking out one of the ports. “I wonder what the stars have in store for us?”

“Maybe we should have brought along an astrologer,” Hugh said with a chuckle.

“I have more faith in our own abilities, Hugh,” Rock said. “The Cadet Board doesn’t think we’ve got what it takes to be spacemen. We can prove them either right or wrong. It’s strictly up to us.”

Now that the detailed task of getting the ship underway was over, the time seemed ripe for the pooling of information that would give the travelers the exact location of the _Northern Cross_.

Kalmus and his three companions joined Rock’s party in the navigation room, Kalmus having brought along his own precious scrap from the record of the _Sagittarius_.

With the ship on autopilot, its course having been computed on the electronic brain, the eleven gathered around the navigator’s table on which were laid out sky charts and the important bits of paper.

The men and youths were able to stand about in this manner because of magnetically charged shoes which clung to the floor. Without them, the travelers would have hung weightless in the zero-gravity. The atomic power rockets had already cut their thrust after reaching required velocity, and the ship was now in free flight.

Rock fitted the torn fragments together on a white sheet of paper as Kalmus, breathing hard, leaned over his shoulder. Rock tore off some transparent tape and carefully stuck the whole together.

The radio operator’s record listed certain numbers and letters that had their counterpart on the sky map. Rock traced the “fix” on a large detailed map of Venus and its environs, his finger finally stopping on one significant spot.

“This is where the _Sagittarius_ had last contact with the _Northern Cross_,” Rock said with suppressed excitement. “The radio man said the _N.C._ was already in free fall around Venus.” He traced an imaginary path around the planet with his finger. “This orbit is our destination.”

“The ship will be somewhere along there, providing it didn’t slow down afterward and fall into Venus,” Shep pointed out.

“True enough,” Rock agreed. “We’ll know the answer in a few weeks.”

Kalmus told the boys how he had come into possession of his scrap with the priceless information. He said that his friend in the space salvage business who had rented them the _Dog Star_ had had on hand some of the things from the destroyed _Sagittarius_. One day he had found the yellowed bits in with some bulkhead parts. He mentioned this to Kalmus, who looked up the old newspaper accounts of the double disaster and prevailed upon his friend to give him the valuable scraps. Then he had made his plans for recovering the _Northern Cross_.

Rock was elected chief navigator and leader of his group. Kalmus, of course, was already head of his own group.

The _Dog Star_’s direction known now, Rock sat at the keyboard of the electronic brain and “typed” out the corrected ship’s path. The complicated math problem was solved quickly, and the answer tape was then fed into the automatic pilot. Only minor corrections of the controls for direction would have to be made by hand until the ship reached its destination.

In the space days that followed, the two groups kept pretty much to themselves. Even eating and sleeping were carried on in separate quarters. Since this was a voyage for mutual gain only, all preferred such an arrangement. Kalmus and his friends prepared their meals in the galley at a set time, and the boys took a later meal hour.

One day when the boys were reading and playing quiet games in the lounge to pass the long hours, they heard a commotion from Kalmus’ part of the ship. Rock got up from the game of chess he was playing with Shep and went to the door. Kalmus was approaching briskly down the corridor, his big frame making his hard-soled shoes thump loudly against the floor.

“What’s wrong?” Rock asked him.

“A meteor tore through the ship just a few feet from Mumbly,” Kalmus replied. “Mumbly was so scared when he heard it that he nearly jumped out of his skin! He left the floor and floated clear up to the ceiling! We had to pull him down!”

Rock and some of the other fellows went to investigate.

The room pressure was still up, but Mumbly Pegg, the near-victim, was pale clear up to his disordered shock of red hair. Kalmus’ stoop-shouldered friend kept mumbling how close he had come to being killed, a mannerism that had gained him his nickname. He talked incessantly to himself, neither getting a reply from anyone nor expecting any.

Rock found holes in opposite sides of the room where the meteorite had hurtled through. The holes were only about pea-sized and were scorched around the edges. The automatic sealing compound would keep the air in the ship from leaking out temporarily, but a permanent repair would have to be made.

“The hull’s got to be soldered from the outside,” Rock told Kalmus. “Some of the boys and I will go outside and take care of it.”

Shep and Johnny offered to go with Rock, and the three put on pressure suits. Then they took up their firing equipment and prepared to enter the air-lock tunnel leading outside.

Before unscrewing the hatch, Rock took in hand one of the safety mooring lines that was fastened to the edge of the hatch.

“These safety lines aren’t the best I’ve ever seen,” Rock commented, as he observed some worn places in the nylon. “Kalmus must have had these given to him.”

“Maybe he wants to get rid of us,” Shep said, half-seriously.

The boys hooked the safety lines to their suits, then climbed out the circular hatch into raw space itself. They still wore magnetic shoes to counteract their weightlessness and enable them to walk.

The boys took one moment to feast their eyes on the brilliant fields of star dust that surrounded them like a great dome.

Spellbound by all the vastness, Rock was comforted by the solid feel of the big round globe beneath their feet. He looked at the long narrow stem that jutted out the back of the sphere and held the smaller shielded ball of the screened-off atomic power plant. The engines were still idle; they would be until it was time to spin the ship around and blast away forward to slow the ship down a few weeks from now.

“Look at Earth over there at ‘7 o’clock,’” Shep said. “It’s just like a fuzzy, unripe peach!”

“Kind of makes you homesick, doesn’t it?” Rock said a little wistfully.

They went over to one of the meteorite holes and knelt down.

The bright fire leaped like a hot bar from Rock’s cutting torch, reddening the metal of the hull almost immediately.

“How long is this going to take?” Johnny asked worriedly. “I want to get back inside. I don’t trust these dilapidated safety lines!”

“I’m beginning to regret I brought you fellows along on this thing,” Rock said thoughtfully. “Kalmus got me so excited about the expedition that I guess I didn’t really consider the risk we were taking by venturing into space on our own. There are so many things that could go wrong.”

“We didn’t have to come,” Shep encouraged him. “Frankly, I’d have gone anywhere just to get away from the station. I’ve been miserable ever since we flunked out. Just a few trick questions and—WHAM—there were three years gone to waste!”

“Maybe they won’t be wasted if our reward is the finding of the _Northern Cross_,” Rock pointed out.