Chapter II

Silently the speeder drove down the ramp past rows of cradled space ships. In the darkness Pell could see very little more than their shadowy shapes. Over on the east part of the field Pell could make out the nightly DIC liner to Mars loading passengers. He wondered vaguely what kind of a ship they were using. From what Gret had said about not desiring to attract attention, he was already a little dubious.

Smoothly the black speeder drew to a halt and Pell got out to examine the little ship before him. It was an obsolete Mark III interceptor. Pell whistled softly as he looked at the hull where huge flakes of rust were apparent, even in the dim light. Its jets were in bad condition; their surfaces were corroded and scarred, but he noted with satisfaction that they had recently been scraped clean of exhaust deposits. Followed by the girl and Heintz, he entered the air-lock and looked at the interior of the ship.

"Let me show you the fine points of this can, Pell," the fat man said, switching on the illumination. He squeezed by Pell and shoved his ungainly body up the passage-way to the control room.

When Pell entered, the fat man's face was creased with a smile that extended from one huge ear to the other on his tiny bullet head. Proudly he pointed at the celestial globe for extra-dimensional navigation.

"Ain't that a beauty? And here's the Thelmard Distorter Generator. Installed it myself, just this afternoon."

With a sinking feeling, Pell stared at the incomprehensible maze of cables that spewed out of the thing and slithered across the deck to their unknown destinations. Heintz squeezed by him again and thrust himself back through the narrow passage-way to the waist where Gret Helmuth was waiting.

Heintz demonstrated the jerry-built uranium vaults which had been welded hap-hazardly to any convenient spot. "It's all there," Heintz beamed. "Enough to last ten years."

He motioned for Pell to follow him and disappeared into the stern of the ship.

Pell emerged a few minutes later, his face an unnatural shade of green. With great deliberation he lowered himself into one of the shock chairs and looked up at Gret Helmuth helplessly.

"That creaky converter won't even get us off the ground, much less take the hyper-space jump," he said.

She looked at him coolly and replied, "This is the best we could do, Mr. Pell. If you are afraid, you can back out now, but--" she produced the ancient automatic pistol she had used with such deadly effect earlier in the evening, "I warn you that I will have to kill you if you do. We cannot take chances."

Pell looked at her eyes. They were bleak and frosty and as hard as blue diamonds. He knew she meant what she said. He shrugged. With everyone apparently intent upon erasing him, it didn't make too much difference where he died. And he would certainly prefer death in space rather than in some back alley.

"Okay, baby, I'll pilot this tub. But you'd better be ready to get out and push!"

He turned to go forward, then stopped as if remembering something. "You realize that this ship is strictly contraband, don't you?"

She nodded. "So?"

"So we simply cannot pass the Geiger Check."

"Then we shall blast off without it," she replied, woman-like.

Pell laughed harshly. "Before we reach the Heaviside the planet-mounted blasters will fry us to a cinder!"

She was still unperturbed. "Then you must figure a way to get us off without that happening," she replied. "After all, you're the pilot."

Pell spread his hands helplessly. "Ah, woman, thy logic is flawless," he muttered half-aloud.

Thoughtfully he looked through the waist port at the liner which had almost completed loading. An idea struck him. He turned to the girl again.

"Get Heintz and harness yourselves in those shock suits. And use these shock chairs in the waist--they're safer. We will blast off the instant that liner does."

* * * * *

In spite of the iron control which had kept her face impassive, Gret Helmuth gasped.

"Do you think we can evade the planet-mounteds by that means?" she asked, her outlander accent very apparent.

He shrugged his shoulders. "Maybe. They won't be able to shoot even if they track us both all the way to the Heaviside because they won't know which one is us. But when we hit Heaviside, they'll know--our ship will be pushing 20 G's and the liner a miserable four. We should be out of their range by then, though. However, don't count on it too much--we'll have every DIC warship in the system on our tail and we may have to fight yet." He turned and disappeared up the little passage-way.

In the control room Pell wriggled awkwardly into the ungainly shock suit that would enable him to live during tremendous accelerations. Squeezing in behind the massive board, he seated himself in the throne-like shock chair and flipped on the inter-com.

"Pell to waist ... can you hear me?"

"Gotcha," the voice of Heintz came over. "We're ready."

"Are the blasters on this tub armed, Heintz?"

"Yeah. Armed 'em myself this afternoon."

"Cross your fingers ... Pell out."

Briefly the electros shrieked up the scale to inaudibility followed by the muffled, reluctant keening of the converter. Pell looked through the forward plastine observation shield. The liner was also warming up its converters; occasionally a shower of red-hot cinders flew out of the blast pit as the pilot gunned his converters. Any minute now ... there it was!

Slowly the huge liner wallowed from its elevated cradle cushioned on a pillar of blue flame. Pell opened his own feed valves a trifle and his primitive converter responded nicely, thrusting the Mark III out of its cradle and up after the passenger liner. Slowly Pell advanced the feed, trying to match the liner's lift. Presently he lost sight of the liner as its speed mounted, but he was familiar with the trajectory it used and he followed it at four G's.

His vizer light was blinking an angry red. He flipped it on and the corpulent, blotched face of a petty official blossomed out of the gray nothingness of the screen.

"What is the meaning of this outrage?" he blustered at Pell. "If you do not decelerate at once, I shall order the planet-mounteds to fire on you!"

Pell tried to force a blank look on his face. "What do you mean, sir? This is a DIC passenger liner headed for Mars. Didn't we pass the Geiger Check?"

The official looked sick. Then his face became an enraged, mottled red. "If you think you can get away with this...." he sputtered.

Pell laughed at him and flipped the vizer off. He looked at his instruments ... another minute now. The back of his shoulders crawled as he contemplated the unpleasant possibility of a planet-mounted blaster burning the little ship to a cinder. Over his vizi-phone he heard the official trying to contact the liner. Again he looked quickly at his instruments. _Now!_

Savagely he opened the converter feed valves and the little ship leaped forward. His fingers played with practiced ease on the jet keys, forcing the ship into a wildly spiralling trajectory. Its path soon resembled a jagged fork of lightning. Let 'em try to get a fix on that, he reflected.

Far off to his left he fancied he saw the dim, almost-spent radiance of a blaster probing for him. Laughing to himself, he straightened the course of the ship and piled on the acceleration. Like the second hand of a clock, the acceleration dial moved up the scale.

An eye-searing 12 G's ... then 15 ... 18.... Finally the needle came to quivering rest at a lung-torturing, bone-crushing 20 G's. The converter screamed just above audio-frequency. The wheezy thing seemed to be pushing like a little trooper, Pell reflected.

His inter-com crackled for a moment, then he heard the labored voice of Gret Helmuth.

"Nice work, Pell. Do you think there will be any more trouble getting out of the system?"

"No, but hold tight, just in case. How's Heintz?"

"He's ... asleep."

Pell grunted to himself. He was worried about the fat man; the acceleration wouldn't do his heart much good. He tried to settle back in his shock suit more comfortably, then realized that the acceleration held him like a vise. Already the oil-cushioned buoyancy pads seemed to thrust into him like spikes. Breathing deeply, he manipulated the massagers in his shock suit.

Just beyond Orbit Luna, Pell gradually swung the nose of the ship toward the nadir of the solar elliptic and the ship streaked out of the system. Turning up the detectors to full sensitivity, Pell tried to relax and sleep--because sleep was actually the only thing to do under tremendous accelerations.

* * * * *

Painfully Pell awoke. He let his eyes flicker over the instruments and nodded with satisfaction as he saw that the ship's velocity had reached 400 miles per second. Stiffly he cut the converter to one G and locked in the robot controls. Instantly the tremendous weight was removed from his body. He shrugged out of his shock suit with every bone in his body aching in discord.

When he had clambered through the narrow passage-way to the waist he saw that Gret was likewise divesting herself of the cumbersome garment.

"We're pushing 400 a second now," he reported. "In another 20 hours we can drop into hyper-space. How's it going back here?"

Gret indicated Heintz who seemed to be asleep. But the ragged gasps of his breathing belied this; Pell knew he was unconscious.

"He's been like this since blast-off--his heart, I believe," she stated matter-of-factly.

Pell frowned. "I was afraid of that. We'd better give him some amytal."

He rummaged around in the medical kit and brought out a hypo. He jabbed Heintz and eased him back into his harness. The fat man's breath became more relaxed and even. Then a question occurred to Pell.

"By the way, why didn't you let me know over the inter-com that Heintz was in this shape?" he asked her.

"You would have cut acceleration and we would have lost time--maybe even have been blasted. If the same thing had happened to me, Heintz would have acted as I did." Her soft, tanned features were hard and single-minded determination blazed from her eyes.

"Pell," she continued, "if I don't come through this, you must deliver the U-235 one way or another."

Pell considered that "one way or another". It sounded ominous and he wondered what it meant. He asked her.

She answered bluntly. "DIC has a swarm of blockaders covering the planet. Nothing can get in or out, except with the greatest risk."

"Have you got any ideas?" he asked.

"No. We are depending on you for that. But there is one way that can't fail. We can drop into hyper-space, evade them, and drop out over the planet. The U-235 is indestructible. They'll find it in the wreckage."

She said it so simply that Pell shuddered in spite of himself. It was nothing more than a proposal of suicide. To drop from hyper-space in the neighborhood of any mass would set up a space-strain that would crush their ship like an egg.

He looked at her thoughtfully. Even in her rough plasto cover-all she was strikingly beautiful. But blue eyes that should have been soft and deep were hard and icy with determination. Her delicate red lips were crushed in a straight brutal line and a beautifully molded chin was out-thrust stubbornly.

Pell chuckled, then said, "You don't seem to remember that you are dealing with a drunken bum whom you picked out of a gutter, Gret. But even though I don't claim to have any ideals and principles, I am a space pilot, not a kamikaze. If there is no better way than that, we won't do it."

She stared at him with disgust in her eyes. "I thought you were a man, not a coward!"

The words stung Pell. Savagely he gripped her arm and snarled, face close to her, "I don't give two cents for your paltry revolution and I certainly don't intend to die in it. Furthermore, I don't particularly give a damn for you and your refrigerated ways. But then I suppose all of you colonial peasant women are of the same mold." He sneered.

_Whack._

His face stung and his eyes smarted from the strength of her slap. Her eyes blazed at him furiously.

"Faradson is depending on this Uranium. It will get to him regardless of the means." She produced the ancient automatic pistol. "If there is no other way, I shall force you to do my bidding with this!"

Pell looked at her contemptuously, turned, and groped back to the control room. When he shrugged into his shock suit, she entered similarly clad. She still held the weapon and her eyes were icy. Her mouth twitched out of control. She seated herself in the shock chair beside him, saying nothing.

Pell switched his gaze from the dials before him to her face. With a leisurely motion he reached out, took her pistol, and thrust it into his pocket.

"I'm getting tired of that thing, baby," he said.

He turned his attention back to the maze of instruments spread before him on the control board and spoke to the girl again without looking up.

"You want speed? Well, baby, you'll get it, regardless of our fat friend back there!"

He jerked his thumb back at the waist. The craft leaped forward, slamming him back into the shock chair. The indicators trembled in their pads and the acceleration needle registered 23 G's.

* * * * *

Pell's head throbbed in rhythm to the shriek of the overworked converter. He goaded his tired eyes to pierce the pain haze that filmed them. The acceleration was more than 600 miles per second. His bones had lead for marrow; each of his joints was a separate discord in a cacophony of pains that tortured him. Bending his will with a great effort, he cut the converter to one G.

Instantly the body-smashing weight lifted from him. For several moments he did not try to move. His heart raced madly as the pressure was removed from it. Pell breathed deeply and looked at the girl. She was slumped forward in the shock chair but even as he looked at her, she began to stir. In spite of himself, Pell felt a twinge of respect for her.

He busied himself with the Thelmard Distorter Field. This would enable the craft to drop into extra-dimensional space, so to speak, by wrapping or folding space about itself. Working rapidly, Pell shot an orbit in the celestial globe, computed it, and jotted some figures down on a pad.

He looked over his shoulder at the girl. "We'll have to fall free for a moment to go into hyper-space, so brace yourself."

He cut the converter entirely and his stomach reacted like that of a diver with the bends. It almost literally tied itself in knots. The girl moaned in pain and grasped the sides of the shock chair. Pell's jaw hardened as he wound up the Thelmard Generator to build up the field about the ship. The familiar stars danced and flickered; then disappeared. He sighed and stepped up the converter to one G acceleration.

He arose from his chair wearily and shrugged from his heavy suit. Addressing the girl behind him, he said, "We won't be needing these things for awhile. You had better go back to the waist and look at Heintz."

Pell turned and looked at her. She was watching him curiously. Her face was strained and lines were etched deeply about her mouth. Her eyes were no longer cold; they were very tired.

"You're a strange man, Pell," she said at length. "I am sorry about ... about that business of awhile ago."

Pell smiled. "I am sorry, too, Gret."

For the first time since he had known her, Gret Helmuth smiled. It was a warm smile and it did strange things to Pell. Before she could reply to his peace offering, his arms were around her and he kissed her. She seemed to respond instinctively for a moment, then pushed him away.

She laughed and said cynically, "That was a rather obvious development, wasn't it?" She disappeared down the narrow passage-way to the waist.

Pell savored the memory of her lips for a moment, then grimaced to himself. She was right, of course.

He exhaled a cloud of smoke and watched its tendrils stream around the control panel and fluff against the plastine observation shield. He tried not to look at the blackness outside because it hurt his eyes. Men had been known to go mad from looking too long at the alien strangeness of this extra-dimensional space which was not for human eyes. Its very nothingness seemed to twist at one's mind.

He glanced at his instruments, then at the celestial navigation globe. In normal space the ship had traveled some four and one-third light years. But in hyper-space it had moved very little during the two hours it had been under the Thelmard.

He turned to Gret. "We've arrived--at least that's what this thing says." He patted the globe. "How's Heintz?"

"Okay now. I gave him some more amytal."

"Umm. That's dangerous stuff--be careful," Pell said. "We're going to fall free again--watch it!"

He cut the converter and deftly cranked up the detectors to full sensitivity. Then he held his breath as he cut the Thelmard and dropped out of hyper-space for an instant. He jumped in spite of himself as all hell broke loose. The detector alarm clamored deafeningly and its red light blinked feverishly.

Throwing up the Thelmard again, Pell turned to the girl and mopped his brow. "I don't think they caught us on their own detectors, but we almost dropped out in their laps." He grinned.

"We now have a first class, double-barreled problem on our hands. This bucket has momentum amounting to about 600 miles per second. We've got to get rid of that. But if we do it too soon the DIC boys will be able to match our speed. And if we do it too late, we'll make quite a puddle on Centaura.

"Naturally," he went on, "they've concentrated most of their strength at zenith and nadir. So we'll drop out of hyper-space in the elliptic and try to fall in free from there. They won't be able to detect us for quite a while and they won't be able to match our 600 miles per second in time to catch us. But I'm afraid we'll have to run the gauntlet of DIC cruisers already in position."

He glanced at her. Excitement burned two red spots high on her cheeks.