Chapter V

Boone waited till the guard had left the cell-block to let in the group scheduled to conduct the preliminary inquiry. Then, with one last look out across the darkening ramp to where the Independent sphere-ship lay interned, he climbed onto the bunk, looped the end of the torn cloth noose up through the ventilator grating, twisted his collar still more awry, and stepped off into space.

The noose cut his neck, but not too badly. Most of his weight hung from the extra loop he'd run under his arms and round his chest. Yet the turned-up collar made it look like he was truly hanging by his neck alone.

There was a drone of voices from the hallway. Words drifted to him as the speakers paused outside the locked door.

"It's all set up," came the clipped tones of Martin Krobis. "We'll push through the special session of the board tonight, with a quick decision in favor of disciplinary discharge from Cartel service. The Federation court can hear the criminal case next cycle. By the end of the week he'll be on his way to Venus barracks."

Someone laughed raucously. A third voice crowed, "Leave it to Krobis!"

Then the bolt was snicking back, the block door opening. Quickly, Boone twisted his head to an appropriate angle. Closing his eyes, he let himself swing limp and motionless as he could.

The fraction of a second later one of the visitors choked, "Krobis! Look--"

"Damn him--!" This in tight fury from Krobis. "He can't cheat me this way! I won't let him!" Shoes slithered on the flooring. "Quick! Help me!"

Hands lifted Boone. A knife hacked at the cloth noose.

The fabric ripped through at last. Still limp of limb, head lolling, Boone let himself be lowered to the bunk.

Then Krobis' voice rang close beside him: "This noose--! There's something funny--"

Stubby fingers tugged apart the double loops.

Boone slumped sidewise, away from Krobis, so that the other was strained far forward and off balance.

Then, in one swift, convulsive movement, he drove his elbow deep into his enemy's unprotected midriff.

The wind went out of the base director's lungs in a gust. He bent double ... hung tottering, face shock-contorted.

Twisting, Boone whipped his hand up ... chopped down with all his might on the back of Krobis' neck.

Krobis slammed forward on his face on the floor.

As he landed, the spell of startlement that had held the others broke. With an incoherent roar, the man at the left lunged forward.

Boone jerked back. Writhing, flat on the bunk, he jackknifed his legs up and lashed out with both feet, straight at his attacker's face.

The man tried to dodge. Barely, in time, his head flicked aside.

But it was too late for him to twist his shoulders.

There was the brittle _Crack!_ of a collar-bone snapping. The man catapulted back, clear across the cell-block.

But now the third man was upon Boone, swinging a nerve-gun. The guard crowded close behind him.

Before Boone could move, the barrel gashed open his forehead. A fist hammered at his temple. The guard clawed at him ... crushed his flailing legs in a mighty bear-hug.

Spasmodically, Boone clutched the nerve-gun; jammed it upward.

A grunt of pain echoed as trigger-guard wrenched forefinger. The man who held the weapon reared back sharply and let go of it.

Boone backhanded the butt, striking for the man's Adam's-apple.

The blow hit home. Choking, Boone's assailant tried to break free, tripped, and pitched backwards to the floor.

Boone spun the gun, reversed it, blazed a charge at the guard, dangerously close to his own legs.

The burly jailer gave a single paroxysmic jerk, then crumpled.

Blood from the barrel-gash spilling into his eyes, Boone lurched up and lunged for the open doorway.

Someone clutched at his ankle. Kicking free, not even turning, he charged on into the corridor and broke for the building exit--half-running, half-staggering.

Then the last door was swinging shut behind him. He plunged into the shadows along a warehouse.

Behind him, chaos and rising voices. A com-box blared, "All guards alert! Escape! This prisoner's dangerous! Don't let him get off the ramp! All guards alert!..."

Forspark lights flared at the gates. Somewhere a surface carrier rumbled into clattering motion.

* * * * *

Boone sagged back against the warehouse and swabbed the blood from his eyes. Then, still breathing hard, running almost doubled, he raced not towards the gates, but away from them, towards the black block that was the airlock power station.

Shadows again, and another pause for breath. Sirens blasting. The rumble of more carriers.

In spite of his tension, Boone smiled thinly. Swinging round, he moved warily on towards the station entrance.

The two men on duty stood in the doorway, peering out across the ramp.

Back flat to the wall, Boone silently edged towards them ... closer ... closer....

One said, "What's that--?" and started to turn.

Boone leaped forward, triggering a beam from the nerve-gun.

The two duty men went down as one. Dragging them inside, Boone kicked the door shut, then turned to the lock control equipment. In seconds, he had levered out the gear that prevented the outer locks from opening till the inner were closed and sealed.

Crossing to the emergency control bank, then, he threw the first switch.

Heavy-duty motors spun to droning life. A red light flashed on the board.

Ten seconds later the red light clicked off. A green light blazed in its stead, and the motors cut off.

The inner locks were open!

Dry-lipped, Boone threw the second switch.

Motors. Red light. Green light. Silence.

Or almost silence. For now a whistling sound came dimly, apparent even within the building.

The sound of the ramp-bubble's precious atmosphere escaping!

Swinging up a heavy beryllium wrench, Boone smashed the switches.

That made his gamble good for fifteen minutes' leeway ... a quarter of an hour at least that the locks would stay jammed open.

Boone threw down the wrench. Then, pivoting, he strode to the door and jerked it open.

On all sides, in the distance, men were running, shouting. There was a low roar of atmosphere compressors, trying to compensate for the changing pressure. Now sirens blasted.

While he watched, a surface carrier skidded around a warehouse and hurtled towards the airlock power station.

Ice-nerved, Boone waited, weapon ready.

The carrier screamed to a stop beside the door. Men leaped down.

Boone stepped from the shadows, swung his nerve-gun. "Back, damn you!"

The men froze, staring.

Vaulting aboard the vehicle, Boone jammed the gun against the back of the driver's neck. "We're going onto the ramp--out to that Independent ship!"

Wordless, the man pressed buttons, swung the steering lever. The carrier jerked forward.

More dragging seconds. The great sphere on the ramp looming ever-larger.

Boone clipped, "Pull in beside the lift-shaft!"

The driver obeyed.

Stunning him with a beam-edge, Boone jumped down, gun concealed once more, as a uniformed Federation trooper stepped from the lift. He made his voice harsh, peremptory: "Who's in charge here?"

It brought the trooper up short. "Sergeant Martov, sir."

"The crew's aboard?"

"Yes, sir. Security ordered them interned on the ship so word wouldn't get out that we'd taken over."

"Then take me to the sergeant. Fast!"

"Yes, sir." The man spun about.

Boone waited till they were both inside the lift, then hit the other behind the ear with the nerve-gun's barrel.

The trooper went down, unconscious.

* * * * *

Rolling him out of the shaft, onto the ramp, Boone shoved the lift control lever to the fifth stop, the crew quarters.

The lift ground upwards.

There was another trooper on duty on the fifth level exit. Boone paralyzed him with the nerve-gun, not even speaking, and ran on down the corridor to the wardroom.

Two Independent ensigns sat playing N'rlan with a navigator. One glanced up as Boone burst in; half-rose, mouth gaping. "My God! The mek-man!"

Boone's heart leaped. "Then--you know about me?"

"Of course!" This from the other ensign. "Terral had the whole ship readied to take off on two minutes' notice. Only then they grabbed you, and the damn' Cartel nailed us down here with a secret internment order from the Federation."

"But you still could make a run? Everything's aboard and ready?"

"Sure, if the locks would only open. There's just a sergeant and three troopers on duty."

Triumph surged through Boone--a wild, raw-nerved elation that left him sagging back against the door-frame, dizzy.

In a voice that didn't even remotely resemble his own, he said, "The locks are open."

The others took over, after that. As from afar, Boone heard the terse commands, the bellowed orders.

Then lights were flashing, hatches slamming. There was the grav-off's momentary lurch and wallow; the swift rush up, the hiss of passage through the airlocks while the sphere rocked like a cork in the vortex of the bubble's escaping atmosphere.

By the time the medmen had sealed the gash in his forehead, the ship was hurtling out across the void on its appointed course, away from Mars, towards far Hyperion.

Hyperion, and Eileen Rey.

Though there was little enough time for Boone to think about her.

And perhaps that was best, also. For the memory of her was with him every moment, like a shadow, and when he paused even for a second, dark fantasies rose and his belly knotted.

So he was glad when the Independents' wizened, thong-tough captain called him in for consultation in the chart-room.

The hurtling heavens flashed on the wall-screen, sharp-focussed by the microreel projector. The captain raised a long light-pointer. "This is our track. To save time, we'll cut short through The Belt and Jupiter's orbit. It's dangerous, but it may fool them."

A chill touched Boone. "You think they'll follow?"

"After what you did--those crippled airlocks?" The captain's laugh was curt and mirthless. "They'll have the whole Federation fleet out hunting for us. The only chance we've got is to find cover."

"And even if we do, we'll still be outlawed?"

"That's right." The captain shrugged. "So far as I'm concerned, I might as well tear up my ticket."

"But if we get mekronal and chandak--"

"That's why I chanced it."

Boone's backbone prickled. He stared at the screen in aching silence.

Overhead, the com-box crackled: "Detector room reporting. We are getting blips off Ceres."

"The asteroid station," the captain muttered. He turned to Boone. "You may as well know: I doubt we'll make it. Because the Cartel ships will hunt us, right along with the Federation fleet. The Europa units, Ganymede, Callisto--they'll all be out. With that many ships, they can set up a screen and follow us on their detectors. Even though we sneak through, they'll still track us and close in as soon as we grav down."

Boone remained tensely silent.

Now the microreel image showed Saturn rising.

Saturn, mother planet of bleak Titan.

Somewhere in the shadow of those vast, shimmering rings Hyperion, too, moved in its orbit.

Hyperion: Another potential source of the precious mekronal and chandak. Another world of strange domed Helgae cities.

Only Hyperion was turning out to be a trap, not refuge. With Cartel and Federation ships alike spread out in a filter-screen across the void, there'd be no chance for this lone Independent ship to land or hide there.

Unless--

* * * * *

Boone all at once was rigid. "Captain," he asked, "could you run to Uranus?"

"Uranus--!" The wizened officer swung, stared at him. "Are you crazy, man? Why would anyone in his right mind want to go there?"

"That's not the question. Could you make it?"

The other's eyes narrowed. "Yes. I suppose so."

"And could you think up a reason for it--some excuse that the Fedfleet might find convincing?"

"Maybe."

Boone drew in a breath. "Then start getting your story together." He strode to the screen, traced a course with his finger. "If you arc it right, we'll pass through Hyperion's field of attraction. When that happens, you can shoot a handful of us down in carriers without even stopping. You'll take the ship on towards Uranus. The Federation, the Cartel, won't even know we've left you."

The captain rocked. "Boone, you _are_ crazy!"

"No!" As if by magic, the chill had left Boone. He burned with sudden, feverish excitement. "The only trick will be to breach the ice-shell. For that, you can rig an unmanned carrier or two with warheads. They'll blast a hole. The rest of the party can go down through it."

"But why?" the captain spluttered. "Why Hyperion, of all places? I've come this far because my orders from Terral were to do exactly what you wanted. But this--this gibberish about an ice-shell--"

"--Isn't gibberish!" Boone finished for him fiercely. "You thought this was to be a prospecting expedition, Captain. But that's not so; not really. Because I've been down on Hyperion before--and underneath the surface ice is a warm world with at least one big Helgae city! All we have to do is set up a base, start processing mekronal, and claim the whole satellite for Associated Independents!"

The captain's eyes distended. "Boone, do you mean it?"

"Of course I mean it! I was aboard a sphere that crashed after monsters hit it. That's why we've got to work fast. Martin Krobis knows about it. Unless we hurry, the Cartel may beat us to it with a unit."

But the captain was no longer listening. Face flushed, brow furrowed, he was studying the microreel-projected wall-chart. "I can pass the word to headquarters to send out a sphere-load of equipment. And I've got enough mekronal aboard to give maybe half-a-dozen men protection without a bubble; Terral bribed some Cartel hand to steal a little for him...."

He swung to the com-box, then; snapped orders.

The quiet of the chart-room dissolved into seething bedlam.

While Boone stood by, warheads were fitted to two carriers. With five mekronal-treated men, he crowded aboard a third.

Then, on the visiscreen, bleak Hyperion was looming. Boone waited, taut and strain-straught, hand on the carrier-release lever.

Now, slowly, the mountain peaks so far away began to form a pattern ... a distortion and projection of the same pattern Boone had seen before, looking up at the crags that pierced the ice-shell.

For a moment he almost thought that in a prick of black he was seeing the rift made by the fallen Cartel sphere-ship.

Not that it mattered; enough that he had a mark to shoot at.

The captain's voice rasped from the com-box: "Boone! You'd better hurry. Our detectors show Federation ships approaching!"

* * * * *

The last lingering fragments of Boone's hesitation vanished. He pressed the button set to trigger the first carrier.

Like a scarlet lance, the sleek craft shot from its cradle--speeding out from the sphere; hurtling down towards the ice-shell, faster and faster.

Boone pressed the second button.

Another explosive-laden carrier speared through the void upon its mission.

Boone turned in his seat. "Hatches--?"

"Secured and sealed," a brawny, blond-haired giant behind him grunted.

For the fraction of a second Boone stared at the rocky face, the grim-set jaw.

The others, too: four stone-featured crewmen, each waiting in silence despite the tension.

A tightness came to Boone's throat.

Only then, once again, the sphere-ship captain's voice was rasping: "Boone, those blips are coming closer!"

Tight-lipped, Boone pressed the third button ... the button that triggered this final carrier.

He jarred back, then, as the pressure of the craft's swift acceleration hit him.

But it only lasted for a moment. Free of the sphere-ship, the carrier sped out into space along the path slashed by the two before it. Behind it, the hurtling mother-globe was already fading, as it raced on across Saturn's orbit towards Uranus.

Down, down the carriers lanced, straight for Hyperion's ice-masked surface ... closer and closer, faster and faster.

Then, while Boone held his breath, the first struck.

A flash of fire; a vast exploding cataclysm. Ice spraying out like splattering water....

Before the cloud of icy splinters could even settle, the second carrier crashed home. New jets of spray leaped skyward. Great cracks appeared, from here a tracery of fine, shimmering lines against the satellite's frigid surface.

Boone slowed the third carrier till it hung almost motionless. Taut-nerved, he waited.

Slowly, the drifting blast-cloud cleared. A pit yawned in the ice.

With wary patience, Boone dropped the carrier closer to the surface ... hovered momentarily above the pit-edge.

Color flashed in the depths--the color of flower-fields, of verdure.

Of a sudden the jagged ice-claws didn't matter. Boone zoomed the carrier in a great loop, then dived it back again straight for the pit, the color.

Death's own tension rode with them. Once Boone thought he could hear the echo of a choked-off prayer.

Then the pit's ice-walls were closing around them. The target below seemed so very tiny....

The carrier struck ice, an out-thrust fragment. A shudder ran through its strain-racked structure. Veering, it crashed into the razor shards along the lower lip of the hole.

The impact flung Boone savagely against his belt. His head snapped back so hard that for a moment he thought his neck was broken. Behind him, through the scream of torn and tortured metal, a man shouted shrilly.

Then the carrier was falling. Barely in time, Boone caught the globe-control and spun it.

* * * * *

End for end, the carrier flipped over in the air. Swinging like a pendulum by its nose, it settled to earth with a jarring shock that would have torn the ramping-fins from a craft less sturdy.

Boone sagged in his seat. Then, rallying, he peered upward.

Ice still was falling. Apparently the force of the carrier's down-thrust--coupled with the earlier blasts--had shaled off great chunks of the ice-shell's under-surface.

As for the ship and the others--Boone loosed his belt; scrambled round to see.

The blond giant already was bending over another crewman.

Boone stiffened. "Is it bad?"

The other straightened, shook his head. "I don't think so. He's just out cold; I think he hit his head on something."

"Good." Boone breathed again. "I think I'll chance an all-clear to the sphere-ship."

Turning to the visiscreen, he twisted dials, pressed buttons. Dimly at first, the mother-craft appeared, far out in space.

Only then, while he watched, another sphere swept across the shining panel, followed by yet another and another.

Cartel ships.

There could be no escape from them. Not when they rallied in such numbers.

Even in that moment, the Independent ship was slowly swinging.

A numb sickness came to Boone. He'd counted on days alone here ... days to lay waste the Helgae city till at last he found Eileen.

Now that margin was reduced to cycles. For once Krobis found that he--Boone--and three carriers were missing from the sphere-ship just after it left Hyperion's orbit, it would be mere hours before Cartel ships were landing.

After that, there'd be Venus Barracks, as well as the emptiness of failure.

If he could only find Eileen before it happened....

He flicked off the visiscreen's main switch.

Like the hideous magnification of an echo, a scream rang through the carrier.

Boone whirled.

As he did so, the blond giant's head appeared, framed in the power-converter hatchway. His eyes were white-rimmed, staring, his left arm limp and bloody.

"Monsters!" he shrieked. "Monsters--!"

Those were the last words that he ever spoke. For as he shouted, six great clawed hands stretched through the hatch behind him and convulsed around his body.

The two top ones tore his head off....