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Title: Blow the Man Down

Author: Charles L. Fontenay

Illustrator: Paul Orban

Release date: March 28, 2019 [eBook #59141]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/59141

Credits: Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BLOW THE MAN DOWN ***

BLOW THE MAN DOWN

BY CHARLES L. FONTENAY

Hijacking the By Jove! was

quite elementary. Hijacking

the crew was something else.

And therein lay Captain Vebrug's

margin for error....

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from

Worlds of If Science Fiction, March 1955.

Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that

the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

When Captain Albrekt Vebrug of the Flanjo intelligence service took over the Mars-Titan freighter By Jove!, it was no such terrestrial foolishness as mercy that prevented him from liquidating the ship's three-man crew.

Sure in his own wolfish strength, his attitude was that three peace-loving merchant spacemen could do much to contribute to his personal comfort, if kept under iron control. Besides, with adequate brain-washing to eliminate loyalty to the Solar Council, their technical skills could make them quite valuable to the somewhat undermanned Flanjo base on Rhea.

On the other hand, his concern for the others aboard the ship was so slight that he would not, on his own, have warned them of the impending acceleration, which could have injured or killed them.

He made his move at 10 minutes before zero hour. As a paying passenger from Mars City to Titan, he had the run of the ship, and had been lounging in the control room for half an hour. Migl, the engineer, was on duty and was sorting the blast-pattern tapes, a job Qoqol had started during his shift.

Albrekt simply took a heat gun from the rack, stuck it in Migl's back and ordered him to leave the control room. Migl took it as a joke, at first.

"It's no joke," Albrekt assured him, nudging him with the weapon. "Get below, if you don't want to get burned."

Puzzlement written all over his swarthy face, Migl unstrapped himself from the captain's chair and pushed himself across the room. Albrekt slid into the chair, buckled himself in and pulled two rolls of magnetic tape from the breast pocket of his coveralls. He found the roll marked "No. 1," stuck the other in the rack beside him and inserted the end of his tape in the automatic pilot.

Migl paused at the top of the gangway.

"You're not going to blast?" demanded Migl in amazement.

"I am," retorted Albrekt, holding the heat gun steady.

"Por Dios, Carrel's not strapped in!" exclaimed the engineer. "You'll break every bone in his body if you don't give him warning!"

Albrekt glanced at his watch.

"You have five minutes to warn him and strap yourself in," he said. "I can't be bothered."

Migl vanished down the hatch and Albrekt flicked the switch that closed and locked it. A moment later the intercom system erupted with Migl's frantic voice from below:

"General alarm! Prepare for emergency acceleration! General alarm! Hurry, Carrel!"

Albrekt smiled grimly.

The second hand swept around the face of the chronometer, boosting the reluctant minute hand forward in jerks. At exactly 1300 hours, Albrekt pushed the firing button.

The tape chattered through the automatic pilot. Apparently, the makers of the tape had planned on a fast-get-away: the pressure must have approached 5-G, pinning Albrekt painfully back against the cushioned reclining chair.

He was able to move his eyes to watch the outside screens. The other eleven ships of the convoy, coasting in formation in their orbit, dwindled behind them and swung gradually to one side.

In a few moments, everything cut off, and weightlessness returned. Red lights were flashing all over the control board, and distant alarm bells were clanging in the depths of the ship. Albrekt had no idea what they meant. He was no spaceman.

The radio loudspeaker crackled and blared. The convoy had discovered the By Jove!'s defection.

"Themis to flagship! Themis to flagship! By Jove! has changed course! Moving away fast. Position, RA 16-2-1/2, D minus 19-40."

After a moment:

"Flagship to Themis: acknowledged. Flagship to By Jove! Flagship to By Jove! Carrel, what the hell?"

Albrekt grinned.

"Themis to flagship," called the loudspeaker, when silence greeted the query. "Shall we follow?"

"Flagship to Themis and all vessels. If you're that flush with fuel, how about passing some around? No pursuit authorized. All vessels take readings on By Jove!'s new orbit as long as it's in range. We'll alert the patrol to investigate when we're in radio range."

The ship's intercom buzzed.

"Albrekt!" It was the voice of Carrel, the captain.

"Yes?"

"We'll get to the reason for this damn fool stunt later. Right now, do you plan any further acceleration?"

"Later. I'll warn you in time to strap down."

"I should hope so. Those G's nearly killed Qoqol. This ship wasn't built for that sort of acceleration, you idiot. Half the seams are sprung and leaking air."

"Repair them, then," snapped Albrekt. "You'll have time."

During the long silence that ensued, Albrekt sat back and took stock of the situation. So far, everything had worked perfectly. The other tape given him by the Flanjo agent on Mars was to be run through the automatic pilot exactly 200 hours after the first one, when the By Jove!'s diverging orbit carried it beyond range of the convoy's meager radar equipment.

The control room would be his headquarters for the next few months, simply because the control room was the only deck of the By Jove! which could be locked against the rest of the ship. All the weapons—the heat guns—were in the control room, so Albrekt expected no trouble on that score.

It was going to be a dull journey from here on out, and Albrekt decided he would do well to learn as much as he could about handling a space ship. He swung the chair around and ran his eyes along the shelves of Carrel's microfilm library. The title Sailing Space, by Dr. Russo Alin, caught his attention.

Albrekt inserted the spool in the projector and started it. An intense bearded face appeared on the screen, and the recorder said:

"It is not generally known, except to students of technological history, that the steam powered and electric powered automobile gave the familiar gasoline powered automobile of the last century a close race for preference in early automotive history. The factors that caused the gasoline powered automobile to become predominant are not important here. What is important is that there were alternative methods of automotive propulsion...."

This didn't start off well. Albrekt ran the spool up about half way and tried again. This time, the author was pointing to a well-chalked blackboard.

"The radiation is so much stronger at Venus than farther out, that it is here we find most common use of the principle," he said. "Using our formula, which, you remember, is F equals rA over 2 plus gM, we...."

Disgusted, Albrekt switched it off and took out the spool. He found another, Survival for Spacemen, and tried it. It was a primer on conditions to be met in space travel, handled in popular vein. It was the sort of thing Albrekt wanted, and he settled back to listen to it.

It was about nine hours before the last red light on the control board winked out and the clanging of the last alarm bell died out below. Then Carrel's voice demanded an accounting over the intercom.

"I'm in command of the ship now," answered Albrekt, awakened from a light doze by the call. "I intend to remain so. As long as you and the others recognize that, you won't be harmed."

There was a brief silence.

"The only thing I can figure is that you've gone space happy," said Carrel at last. "Albrekt, you're no spaceman. You can't have known what you were doing when you switched on the jets."

Albrekt did not answer.

"Look," said Carrel, "it'll take several days to figure out what sort of orbit that blast threw us into, and I'm not sure we have enough fuel to correct it. You'd better let us in."

"We may as well understand each other," said Albrekt. "I'm no spaceman, but some very good spacemen figured out that blast tape—and the other one I'm going to use later. I'm a captain in the Flanjo military, and I've taken this ship and its cargo over, to deliver them to the Flanjo patrol. None of you will be hurt if you cause no trouble."

"So that's it!" snorted Carrel. "Damned pirate high-jacker! My advice to you, Albrekt, is to come out of there and let me put you under arrest, because if you don't we'll be coming in after you."

"Try it, and I'll burn you," retorted Albrekt.

After sleeping several times, Albrekt was ready to concede it was not going to be as cozy in the control room as he had thought at first. It offered basic comforts of home, but the showers were on the larger navigation deck below. Several months without a bath promised to be uncomfortable. All decks carried plenty of emergency rations in case they were sealed off by a meteor collision, but the rations were not too tasty, Albrekt's mouth was beginning to water at the thought of the frozen meals stored two decks below, available to the crew.

Most of Carrel's book tapes were too technical to interest him, but he spent much of his time listening to those which offered him information in simple terms. The pattern of meaning of all the dials, switches and buttons crowded into the control room became a little clearer to him.

Albrekt did not see how the crew, weaponless and locked below, could challenge his mastery of the ship. He detected the first effort in this direction about 80 hours after the By Jove! had left the convoy.

Albrekt was eating a meal of emergency rations when he glimpsed movement on one of the rear screens. He turned his attention to it at once.

A spacesuited figure was emerging from the airlock, which was in a narrow waist between the vessel's personnel sphere and the huge cargo cylinder beneath it. From the suit, it was either Carrel or Migl.

The figure moved cautiously up on the outside of the airlock, gripping its surface with heavy magnetic shoes. In the hooks of the spacesuit, it carried two sledge hammers.

Albrekt flipped on the switch to the intercom, which was tuned to the spacesuit helmet radios as well as the ship's system.

"I'd advise the man in the spacesuit to forget it, and get back aboard," he said gently. "If he doesn't, I'll sweep the outside surface with machine gun fire in exactly two minutes."

His fingers hovered over the firing buttons of the heavy weapons the By Jove! carried for defense against possible marauders. But in a moment the spacesuited figure reentered the airlock.

"It would take you some time to break into the control room with a sledge hammer," Albrekt said conversationally into the microphone. "At the first blow, I'll blast anyone who tries it. That's fair warning."

It was several days later that Albrekt began to feel sleepy long before his sleeping time. The realization hit him suddenly that for some time he had been yawning and stretching, relaxing more and more in the chair, his eyelids getting heavier and heavier. His head was beginning to ache a little. He slept by the clock and awoke by the clock. He should not be sleepy for hours yet.

Rousing himself with an effort, he swung bleary eyes around the control room, anxiously. He could see nothing out of order. But how would one detect something that made one abnormally sleepy? What could it be?

Illness?

If there were harmful bacteria aboard the ship, they should have struck many days ago. There was no disease in space itself.

Gas?

If such ships as the By Jove! carried any sort of gas, Albrekt didn't know about it. He had been briefed on the weapons he might face. Surely gas would have been mentioned.

Perhaps it was chance, or perhaps some part of his mind was swiftly scanning what he had learned through his reading of the last few days: his eyes fell on a bank of dials ranged side by side on the control board. The hands of all of them were lined up at the same angle—all but one. It had sunk far to the left.

The legend above the bank of dials read: "OXYGEN." The plate below the lagging dial read: "Control Room."

Albrekt unstrapped himself from the chair with nervously fumbling hands. Somehow the crew of the By Jove! was interfering with his oxygen supply.

Albrekt was beginning to feel a little nauseated. His head throbbed. He pushed himself across the control room and grabbed the helmet of the spacesuit that hung there. He did not take time to put on the suit itself, but pulled the helmet down over his head and switched on the suit's oxygen supply.

In a moment his head cleared, leaving only a slight headache.

As well as Albrekt remembered from the reading tapes, the ship's oxygen supply was on one of the lowest decks. The crew evidently had blocked the line to the control room.

"You'd think there'd be some alarm system for that sort of thing," he muttered to himself. But then, of course, the hull had not been punctured. The dials were supposed to be checked frequently.

The question that faced Albrekt now was how to get out of this trap. He couldn't live in the spacesuit indefinitely. His hand brushed the heat gun at his side.

Filling his lungs with deep gulps, he ducked from beneath the helmet and returned to the control board. He unlocked and opened the hatch to the navigation deck below. There was an upward swirl of air, and Albrekt permitted himself to breathe again.

A head poked itself cautiously up the companionway. Carrel. The captain's face was a strong one, lined with years of decision, golden-brown with the tan that one gets only from years in the thin air of Mars. Carrel's dark hair was beginning to gray, but his electric blue eyes were still young.

He stopped when he saw Albrekt at the control board. Albrekt held the heat gun on the captain steadily.

"I'm not anywhere near overcome," said Albrekt. "You'd better turn around and go back down."

Carrel did.

As long as the hatch stayed open, oxygen could not be cut off from the control room. Albrekt decided he could afford to leave it open, since he had possession of the weapons. He would have to lock it while asleep, of course. But, even with the oxygen supply cut off, the control room should contain enough to carry him for eight hours. If not, he could set an alarm to wake him every four hours, or even every two hours, to open the hatch and refresh his air.

The fact that he could leave the hatch open safely gave him another idea. He was hungry for some food besides the dry emergency rations.

Albrekt checked the chronometer. Within the next two hours, he was scheduled to run the other blast tape. He would have time.

Heat gun in hand, he moved quietly to the hatch. The companionway was clear. From below came the murmur of voices. He moved cautiously a few steps down the metal ladder until he could see beneath the ceiling of the navigation deck.

Migl was taking a shower on the other side of the room, while Carrel and Qoqol relaxed in contour chairs beside the dead-reckoning tracer.

"What is Flanjo, Carrel?" asked the booming voice of Qoqol, the navigator.

Qoqol was a Martian. His round body with its huge oxygen storage hump was not quite as big as a human body, but his thin arms and legs, each equipped with half a dozen double joints, were longer than a tall man's height. They were wrapped around him now, out of the way, and his big-eyed, big-eared head peered through them like an urchin's face through a tangle of vines.

"The Flanjos are members of a fanatic sect who believe in human supremacy," answered Carrel soberly. "More than that, they believe in their own supremacy over other humans. They revolted against the Solar Council and have a hidden base our forces haven't been able to locate yet."

"They are loco, Qoqol," said Migl from the shower. "Crazy. They'd make all you Martians slaves. Us too, probably."

"Why they want this ship?" asked Qoqol.

"For the ship itself, partly," said Carrel. "But our cargo's pretty strategic, too. It's mostly lithium, which they can use in nuclear weapons and power plants. They can use the plastics, tools and machinery we're carrying to improve conditions at their base. The general opinion I've heard is that their objective is to take over the Mars colonies. They need fusion weapons for that, but it's hard to get light elements on the outer moons, where their base is thought to be. Whatever they have already, 100 tons of lithium will help them immensely."

"Immensely," assented Albrekt, stepping off the ladder to drift to the floor. He held the heat gun lightly in his hand. "I'm afraid I'm going to require all of you to go ahead of me down to the storage deck and remain there while I enjoy a good lunch."

Silently they complied. The living quarters, where the food was, were one deck down, the storage deck below it.

Albrekt ate his meal, keeping a watchful eye on the opening between the living quarters and the storage deck. Then he returned to the control room, locked the hatch and strapped himself down for blasting.

He kept his promise to Carrel and broadcast a warning of the blast over the intercom system. At the appointed moment, he ran the blast tape through the automatic pilot.

The acceleration was not as heavy this time. The ship, safe from the prying of the convoy's radar, swung slowly from its course and into a new prearranged orbit, on which a Flanjo vessel was to intercept it in approximately six months.

Space is a lonely place—lonelier than any place on Earth, lonelier than any place on Mars. No expanse of desert or ocean is so empty as space, for there one at least has something material beneath him and around him.

"An experienced spaceman would rather be burned than left alone in space," said Carrel. "It'll drive most men completely crazy in a pretty short time. I think you've realized that by now, Albrekt. That's why you won't kill us."

Albrekt was eating a meal at the table in the living quarters, his heat gun lying beside his hand. The others were seated on bunks across the room. Since the only necessity was to protect himself and keep the others out of the control room, he had discontinued the practice of making the crew go below while he ate. Despite the atmosphere of enmity, the conversation and companionship filled a need he was beginning to recognize more keenly.

"That's true," answered Albrekt agreeably. "For that and other reasons, I won't kill you unless I'm forced to."

"But there's nothing to prevent our killing you and retaking the ship," reminded Carrel.

"Nothing but this." Albrekt laid his hand on his heat gun.

"As a matter of fact, I don't want to kill you, Albrekt," said Carrel. "I want to capture you alive, and take you back to Mars. I imagine you have some information about Flanjo plans that would be pretty valuable to the council."

Albrekt laughed.

"I admire your courage, Carrel," he said. "But I've been in dangerous positions before, for longer periods than this. I don't intend to let my guard down."

Carrel apparently was blessed with iron self-control and Qoqol, like all Martians, habitually showed emotion in ways no Earthman could interpret. But Albrekt's practiced eye detected Migl's restlessness. When the crew's move came, two days later, Albrekt was ready for it.

As he had anticipated, it happened at mealtime. Albrekt was beginning to spend more time outside the control room, always keeping the others from getting between him and the hatch to higher decks, but mealtime was the logical time for his guard to be lax.

At some signal Albrekt failed to catch, Carrel and Qoqol launched themselves directly at him from opposite sides of the round room. Simultaneously, Migl drove through the air for the hatch to the upper decks.

Albrekt's muscles reacted like steel springs. Scooping up the heat gun, he dove across the table and twisted in the air as he floated swiftly between Carrel and Qoqol. Ignoring them for the moment, he trained the gun on the hatch to the navigation deck above and pressed the trigger. Migl had to grab the ladder frantically to keep from drifting head-on into the sizzling beam that barred his way.

Albrekt anchored himself to a bunk and waved the heat beam in an arc above their heads. The metal ceiling smoked faintly.

"I won't kill you all unless I have to," he said calmly. "I can get along easily without one or two of you, though. Before you try anything like this again, I'd suggest you think seriously about which of you wants to die first."

Silence answered him. Migl still clung to the companionway ladder, about halfway up. Carrel clasped his knees in a sitting position about six inches off the floor near the round table in the center of the room. Qoqol, unable to stand upright anywhere aboard the ship, crouched like a spider against the farther wall.

Albrekt switched off the heat beam and motioned at Migl with the gun. Watching them closely, Albrekt moved to the companionway and pushed himself up through the hatch.

Locking himself in the control room, he devoted himself to serious thought for a while. Despite his warning, this sort of thing was likely to happen often. Eventually it must succeed, if only by the law of averages.

The trouble was, Albrekt was actually at a slight disadvantage. He knew by now that the absolute need for companionship in space was not idle talk. He had no intention of coasting alone, in a silent ship, for five and a half more months, and being shot as hopelessly insane when his Flanjo colleagues picked him up at the rendezvous.

One solution, of course, was to kill two of the crew members. Then neither of the two men left could afford to kill the other. For several reasons, Albrekt preferred to find another solution. He had heard rumors that personality conflicts between two people cooped up together in a spaceship drove them eventually at each other's throats. Another factor was that, as long as there were three of the others, Albrekt could hold the threat of killing one or two of them over them. Besides, their technical knowledge would be valuable to the Flanjos, and Albrekt wanted to face no disciplinary action for destroying any of them unnecessarily.

What was the substance of their threat to him, then? He examined it. Their threat was that they might reach the control room. He could not lock it from the outside, and he must come outside for good food and necessary companionship, so that line of reasoning got him nowhere.

But what was behind the threat of their reaching the control room? They might (a) obtain weapons to match his own; (b) communicate the ship's position to warships of the Solar Council; (c) swing the ship off its prearranged course and avoid the rendezvous with the Flanjo vessel.

Solution? Albrekt laughed shortly. There was a solution to all three problems.

With his heat gun, he reduced the radio transmitter to a molten mess. Now the By Jove! could still receive, but not send.

Piling all the heat guns in the center of the room, he gave them the same treatment. The beam left them almost unrecognizeable in the midst of a shallow crater. He had come very near to burning a hole through into the navigation deck.

The last step was the most daring of all. It meant that he must trust absolutely to the accuracy of the two blast tapes he had run through the automatic pilot. He threw the switches that jettisoned the fuel tanks.

In the screens, he watched the spheres of hydrazine and nitric acid, hurled from the ship by spring action, go drifting slowly away into the void. In effect, the By Jove! was now a voiceless derelict.

Albrekt went below.

"This means that I intend to stand for no more foolishness," he said harshly when he had told the others what he had done. "If you prefer, you may draw lots to decide which two I shall kill and which one shall have the pleasure of my company for the rest of the trip. The continued existence of all three of you will depend strictly on your good behavior."

Migl, lolling on a bunk, curled a sardonic lip at him.

"You seem to have gone to a great deal of unnecessary trouble, ladrón," he said. "It is still worth the risk of at least one of our lives to destroy or capture you."

"You're wrong, Migl," said Carrel soberly. "Now we have no fuel, we have no radio. The ship is in orbit, and we're helpless to change it. No matter what we do aboard, the Flanjo ship will intercept us. The Flanjos will destroy us then if they don't find Albrekt alive and safe."

"An accurate analysis," agreed Albrekt briskly. "You're showing good sense now, Carrel."

Carrel shrugged and spread his hands. Albrekt felt a little sorry for him in defeat. He admired Carrel's bravery and resourcefulness.

Albrekt's sleep that night was more carefree than it had been since the By Jove! pulled free from its satellite orbit around Mars. There was still danger, of course. He had to be on the alert for a desperate attempt to disarm him, or an effort to overcome him in the control room by tampering with the ship's machinery, despite Carrel's surrender. But it was less likely now.

Relations were on a much more cordial basis from then on. Their conversation returned, almost, to the friendly terms of the earlier portion of the trip.

"Ever been to the outer planets before, Albrekt?" Carrel asked casually one day, munching a beef sandwich.

"I spent ten years at the base, before they sent me back to work on Mars and Earth," Albrekt replied. "I was born on Earth. My father took me out to the base when I was a boy."

"The base?" repeated Carrel, even more casually.

"On Rhea," said Albrekt deliberately. His faint smile recognized the attempt to elicit information. "Now, figure some way to tell them back on Mars!"

He thought Carrel flushed slightly, but could not be sure.

"Ever been to Venus?" asked Carrel.

"Never that far in, I'm afraid," answered Albrekt.

"I don't suppose you passed quite this close to Jupiter on your other trips?" said Carrel.

"How should I know?" demanded Albrekt. "I'm no spaceman. I don't know how close to Jupiter we're going now. I don't remember anything said about Jupiter on my trips."

"They'd have opened the ports and let all of you see, if you were going within several million miles of it," said Carrel. "Qoqol's figured it out. We're going pretty close this time."

"You want me to open the ports and let you see Jupiter?" asked Albrekt sarcastically.

"Something more serious than that," answered Carrel gravely. "It's the radiation."

Albrekt pushed himself back from the table and stared quizzically at Carrel.

"You wouldn't take advantage of my ignorance to rib me a little, would you now, Carrel?" he chided gently. "I studied elementary astronomy, you know."

"You're proving right now that you didn't study astrogation," retorted Carrel sharply. "Any spaceman can tell you the reaction of cosmic rays on Jupiter's atmosphere is fatal at the distance we'll pass in this orbit. If our convoy had been passing so close, every ship would have been shielded."

"Carrel, I can't see your object in lying, but I think you are. Some damned good spacemen plotted this orbit."

"And what do they care about your life or ours?" demanded Carrel hotly. "You know your Flanjo buddies as well as I do. We'll live long enough for them to get all the information they want out of us."

Albrekt studied him closely. Carrel returned his gaze with serious eyes.

"Maybe you're telling the truth," said Albrekt slowly. "If you're lying, I can't see your reason. You know I won't panic, and we can't change orbit."

"I'm trying to impress you with the seriousness of this thing, because there's something we can do about it if you'll let us," said Carrel patiently. "All it takes is a thin metal shield at a proper distance from the ship, and we can build that out of the cargo we're carrying."

"The only metal aboard is lithium," demurred Albrekt sternly. "That lithium's slated for nuclear reactors and weapons and it's going to reach Rhea intact!"

"We're not going to burn up any of your precious lithium!" exploded Carrel. "All I ask is to use half of it to build a shield. They can use the damn stuff out of the shield as easy as out of cargo bars. It'll all be there, just the same."

Albrekt hesitated. It was quite conceivable that his superiors had not bothered about such a trifle as his slow death from radiation. They would have plotted the most effective orbit for their purposes, and if the By Jove! didn't happen to be shielded—well, casualties had to be expected in any military operation.

"You have my permission to build the shield," he said stiffly at last, "under my strict supervision, of course."

"That's all right with me," consented Carrel with a sigh of relief. "And I give you my word as a space captain, Albrekt, nobody aboard the By Jove! will lift a hand against you while it's being built."

Despite Carrel's reassurance, Albrekt, wary of some stratagem, held to his determination to oversee every step of the shield construction, with gun handy.

Fifty tons of such a light metal as lithium is a pretty large volume of the stuff. Albrekt assumed that Carrel's shield was to be a square or disc of the metal, rather thick to absorb the radiation, which would be interposed between the By Jove! and Jupiter. When work began, after several days of planning, it became apparent that the construction task was something more than cutting out and fastening together chunks of lithium.

Instead of working inside the ship, the crew moved a furnace to the outside of the cargo hull and anchored it down. The Earthmen wore spacesuits, of course, but Qoqol did not, as Martians do not breathe, but extract oxygen from solid matter and store enough of it to last several hours at a time.

To Albrekt's surprise, they next hauled out some of the big packages which were plastic domes for use on Titan. At extra-terrestrial bases, these hemispherical domes were inflated to form huge air bubbles in which humans could live.

"Plastic?" said Albrekt through his helmet radio. "I thought you were going to use lithium."

"We are," replied Carrel's voice. "We'll fasten some of these domes together to form an airtight sphere, then inflate it from the oxygen supply. It won't take much pressure, and we can recover the oxygen later with the ship's compressor.

"Before we recover the oxygen, we'll charge the plastic sphere electrically, so it'll stay rigid. Then we'll vaporize the lithium in the boiler and spray it over half the plastic sphere. We'll blacken the plastic and melt it with solar heat, returning it to the boiler by charging the boiler. I'm afraid we're going to ruin a few of the plastic domes, but that's not important now."

"Spray the lithium? Fifty tons of it?"

"Wait and see," Carrel said. "This will be a bigger shield than you expected."

Later, at mealtime, Carrel brought a worry to the surface of Albrekt's mind which the Flanjo agent had been trying to keep suppressed.

"That was a pretty rash business, jetting all the fuel," said Carrel. "What do we do if we're off orbit?"

"It seems to me I've mentioned before that some very good spacemen plotted this orbit," replied Albrekt.

"The best orbits sometimes require minor corrections, when they're this long," said Carrel.

"I couldn't make them, anyhow, and I certainly wouldn't trust any of you at the controls," said Albrekt. "Don't you think my superiors thought of that when they planned this?"

"Maybe," said Carrel.

Albrekt was amazed at the size of the shield Carrel was building. The inflated plastic sphere was bigger than a small asteroid, some six to eight miles in diameter. Carrel had spliced together several of the biggest plastic domes available. Nowhere but in free space, could the sphere have been inflated with so little gas pressure.

The ship could have floated around in Carrel's sphere like a cork in a water bucket.

"It has to be big, because the shield is going to be about 20 miles away from the ship, attached to it by lithium wires," explained Carrel. "So the diameter of the shield has to be this big, to eclipse the disc of Jupiter at the distance we'll pass the planet."

"I don't understand the principle of this at all," said Albrekt irritably. "It seems to me a smaller, heavier shield closer to the ship would be just as effective."

"That's because you don't understand this type of radiation," replied Carrel.

When the shield was completed and the plastic framework removed, it was a tissue-thin metal hemisphere, attached to the ship like a parachute. Migl used up several oxygen cylinders as makeshift rockets to push the shield out to the proper distance from the ship, while the attaching wires were unreeled from the cargo winches.

"We leave the wires on the winches, because we'll have to shift the position of the shield from time to time by shortening some wires and lengthening others," Carrel said.

When the task was complete and the shield glimmered in the sunlight like a nearby moon, they all returned to the living quarters.

"Qoqol, you'll be in charge of keeping the shield at the proper angle," said Carrel. "And, Albrekt, the truce is over."

"What do you mean by that?" growled Albrekt, his hand dropping to his heat gun.

"I've kept my promise while the shield was being built," answered Carrel. "Now, if we can catch you off guard, and do it without being burned down, I warn you we're going to try to disarm and capture you."

Albrekt relaxed.

"You won't get the chance," he promised. "If you did, what good would it do you? We rendezvous with my ship in less than four months now."

Despite Carrel's threat, Albrekt was still in control of the situation when the hour of rendezvous approached. The necessity for keeping alert against possible attack was a considerable strain on him, but he had been under strain many times before in his life. Neither Carrel nor either of the others had made any overt move.

Assured in his own mind that the risk became less and less as the trysting place neared, Albrekt had permitted the crew into the control room except when he slept above a locked hatch. Half an hour before the scheduled time of meeting with the Flanjo ship, Carrel, Migl and Qoqol filed up through the hatch. Albrekt offered no objection, and they floated across the control room to seats.

"Looks like your ship would be on the screens by now, doesn't it, Albrekt?" suggested Carrel quietly.

"They don't have to make the rendezvous exactly on time," replied Albrekt, a little uneasily. "They know the orbit. They can pick us up anywhere along it."

"We're not in the orbit," said Carrel flatly.

Albrekt scowled at him, but his eyes were drawn back irresistibly to the screens, empty except for the silvery lithium shield and, perched just above its edge, the small but baleful disc of Jupiter.

"Qoqol checked the blast tapes you used, and we're not in the orbit they're suppose to put us in," insisted Carrel. "Qoqol's been making sightings for the last six weeks. Jupiter's pulled us off orbit, Albrekt."

"Is true," boomed Qoqol. "We long way off."

"This sort of thing's doing you no good," snapped Albrekt. "I'm not a spaceman and I can't check your figures, but I don't think we're off orbit."

"And if your ship doesn't make the rendezvous?" asked Carrel.

"If it doesn't now, it will later on. And, by Saturn, we're going to sit tight in this kettle till it does, Carrel! Last minute propaganda won't work."

There was silence for a few minutes, as the chronometer hand ticked on toward the hour of meeting.

The radio buzzed. Leaning forward, Albrekt turned up the volume, eagerly.

"Captain Albrekt Vebrug," called the radio. "Flanjo patrol ship Bavaria to Captain Albrekt Vebrug."

Albrekt turned a triumphant face to Carrel. But Carrel gestured at the screens. They were still empty. And the radio voice was not coming in strongly.

"Vebrug, we don't find the By Jove! on our screens," said the radio, fading a little, then getting louder. "If you get this call, Vebrug, break radio silence and reply. Do you hear this, Vebrug? Break radio silence and reply!"

Perspiration broke out on Albrekt's forehead. He could not reply. The ship's transmitter was a pile of junk.

"Vebrug, Vebrug," intoned the radio insistently. "We don't find you in orbit. If you hear this, break radio silence and reply."

Carrel rose from his seat, floating slightly upward. Albrekt, sweating, dropped his hand to his heat gun.

"We can't stay in this sector, Vebrug," whispered the radio. "Blasting back to base now. Will call every five minutes for the next two hours. If you hear this, break radio silence and reply."

The radio squawked. Then there was nothing but stellar static.

"Well, Albrekt?" said Carrel.

Albrekt felt his iron nerve cracking. He felt that he was breaking apart physically.

"Keep your distance, all of you!" he croaked, drawing the gun. "They'll be back. They'll search all space for us!"

Carrel floated a little closer and Albrekt levelled the gun at him. Migl and Qoqol moved in slightly. Albrekt swung the gun in an arc.

"I'll blast all three of you," he warned desperately. "Carrel...."

"Why?" asked Carrel. "We're all in the same boat, Albrekt. We're spiralling into Jupiter."

"You lie!" shouted Albrekt. "I don't believe you, Carrel!"

Carrel laughed shortly.

"Where's your nerve, Albrekt?" he asked. "You've done pretty well up to now. Does the immediate prospect of dying frighten you so much?"

Albrekt lowered the gun slightly.

"If I were afraid to die I wouldn't be here," he replied. "You're not baiting me for nothing, Carrel. What are you after?"

"I don't think you realize how many millions of miles your Flanjo ship had to come to the rendezvous point," said Carrel. "As much as your friends want this cargo, they won't stay around long. Solar Council ships probably heard that broadcast."

"What makes you think they can find us?" sneered Albrekt. "We can't call them either."

"They can't find us," replied Carrel calmly. "The chances are a million to one against it, and we don't have enough time for chances like that."

Ice seemed to enter Albrekt's veins. He glared at them from angry eyes. They were inching closer to him. Already they were halfway across the control room.

"Stand back!" he said, his voice trembling. "I'll burn all of you!"

"And die alone, Albrekt?" Carrel's brittle voice was like the blow of a hammer against rock.

On the screen behind Carrel, the orb of Jupiter floated off the port bow, red and ominous. Giant of the heavens, its tremendous mass could snatch them from the sky, crush and break them like moths.

All the vast loneliness of space swept over Albrekt on wings of fear. It was too much for a planet-bound mind to face. The last companionship even of enemies was better than solitary death.

"No," he muttered, beaten, and the heat gun drooped in his hand. Qoqol's eight-foot arm reached in like a striking snake to lift it from his nerveless grasp.

"Good work, Qoqol," said Carrel heartily. "I had an idea the Flanjo tradition of superiority would break in the face of the inevitable. It was worth risking, now that we know we're safe."

"Safe?" said Albrekt bitterly. "Safe for what? To fall into Jupiter?"

"Well, now," said Carrel drolly, "I believe I neglected to say that our spiral toward Jupiter will intercept the Solar Council base on Callisto, didn't I? Yes sir, it's one of the neatest orbits Qoqol has ever plotted."

"What?" demanded Albrekt, stunned. "You mean we're in a controlled orbit?"

"Why, yes, my Flanjo friend. We started pulling out of the orbits your blast tapes set about four months ago. If we hadn't, we wouldn't have come anywhere near Jupiter."

"You lie!" shouted Albrekt. "You lie, Carrel! You couldn't! There's no fuel!"

"I'm afraid we're going to have to keep you tied up to one of the bunks for the next few weeks, Albrekt," said Carrel. "You're too valuable a prisoner to take a chance on your doing away with yourself."

"There's no fuel," repeated Albrekt. He was almost whimpering.

"I'll relieve your mind on that score," said Carrel. "Have you ever seen a sailing ship on Earth?"

Albrekt stared at him, uncomprehending.

"A sailing ship doesn't need fuel because it gets its power from the wind," said Carrel. "Neither do we, now. I'm afraid that story I told you about dangerous radiation from Jupiter was made up of whole cloth, Albrekt. There isn't any.

"That lithium hemisphere we built isn't a shield. It's a sail."

"But there's no wind—there's no air—"

"The wind that blows between the worlds," said Carrel solemnly. "Solar radiation. Its pressure will move a ship if you provide a sail that's big enough and light enough—and that's what we did."

"It's impossible," muttered Albrekt, crouching back against the automatic pilot.

"Not impossible, just extremely unusual this far out," said Carrel. "If they ever let you out of prison, Albrekt, I think a trip to Venus would be worth your while. I think you'd find the annual space regatta particularly interesting."

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BLOW THE MAN DOWN

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