Vance, Jack Read online

  Paddy met him halfway. He paused, expecting the Koton to throw down his gun. The Koton ran past, aching for the golden sheets. Paddy hesitated—then, seeing no gun at the Koton's belt, turned and ran for the boat.

  Fay let him in. Paddy pulled off the head-bubble, looked at Fay's tense white face. "What is it then, Fay?"

  "There's no power."

  Paddy's shoulder sagged and his hands paused at the zipper of the air-suit. "No power?"

  "We're marooned," she said. "And that Koton ship will be here in a few days—maybe less." She stepped up on the deck, looked out the dome toward the Angry Dragon. "And Zhri Khainga is waiting."

  "Och," muttered Paddy. "We'd walk out across that black sand and give up our breaths first." He joined her on the control deck. "Are you sure about the power now? I was fooled once myself." He tried the controls. They were dead.

  Paddy chewed his lip. "That villain worked some sort of relay switch into the drive, that would cut off our energy once we landed. And how he must be gloating!"

  "Now he's got the sheets," said Fay, "and he can hide from us until his ship comes. We could never find him."

  "It's rats we're like, on a sinking ship. Try the space-wave, Fay! Send out a call."

  She flipped the switch. "Dead!"

  Paddy shuddered. "Don't be using that word so much." He paced, two steps across the deck to port, four steps back to starboard, back to the center of the cabin. "Now try the anti-gravity. That's on its own special unit and there's no connection."

  Fay slid the metal boss. Their weight left them.

  "Now," crowed Paddy, "at least we'll leave the planet, for the surface will rotate away from under us."

  "Zhri Khainga will see us leave," said Fay. "He'll know what we're doing and he'll find us easily as if we were crawling on our hands and knees in the snow."

  Paddy reached out, seized a stanchion, squeezed it. "If this were only his neck," he said between his teeth, "I'd hang on while his heels pounded on the deck and laugh in his face."

  Fay laughed wanly. "This is no time for day-dreaming, Paddy dear." She looked out the port. "We've already risen about a foot from the ground."

  "Paddy narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. "I know how to get a kick out of those tubes. It'll give us a nasty jar, since there's no counter-gravity to the acceleration—but we'll do it."

  "Do what, Paddy?"

  "We have four drive tubes on this little hull. There's lots of energy curled up and slumbering inside each one of them. Now, if we let that energy come whirling out the after end of one, we'll go forward. Of course, we'll ruin the tube."

  "Do you know how, Paddy?" Fay asked doubtfully.

  "I think I'll just shoot the end of the tube loose and it'll be like breaking open a fire-hose." He looked out the port. "Now we're six feet off the ground—and look! there's that Koton! See him? Sitting there as calm and majestic as you please, laughing at us. Here give me that gun, I'll make a Christian of him—and I'll shoot off our tube at the same time."

  He snapped the bubble back over his head, stepped into the lock, opened the outer port. Zhri Khainga quickly ducked behind a rock and Paddy regretfully held his fire. He turned, braced himself, drew a bead on the tip of the lower tube, gritted his teeth, commended himself to his natal saint and squeezed the trigger The tube split, an instantaneous spiral of blue flame lashed out, smote the ground. The boat lunged ahead, up at a slant.

  Fay painfully got down from the elastic webbing, ran to the port. "Paddy!" She looked through the bull's-eye in the lock, heart in her mouth.

  Paddy lay crumpled, unconscious. The bubble around his head was cracked; air was whistling out—visibly, as the water-vapor condensed to fog. Blood was trickling from his nose, spreading along his face.

  "Paddy!" cried Fay as if her soul were dissolving. She could not close the outer door as his leg hung out, twisted at an odd angle. She could not open the inner door lest she lose all the air inside the ship.

  She bent her forehead into the palms of her hands, whimpered. Then rising, she ran to the air-suit rack. One leg— both legs—zip up the side—head-bubble, two snaps. She ran to the lock, tugged it open against the inner pressure and the blast of air nearly flung her out into space.

  She caught hold of Paddy's arm, pulled his weightless body in against the dying current of air.

  "Paddy," whispered Fay. "Are you dead?"

  CHAPTER XXIV

  There was air in the cabin, warm clean air. Paddy lay on his bunk, one leg in a splint, a bandage around his head. Fay sat mopping at the trickle of blood which seeped from his nose.

  Paddy sighed, shook in a delirium. Fay gave him a third injection of vivest-101, and spoke to him soothingly in a voice soft as summer grace.

  Paddy gave a sudden jerk, then sighed, relaxed. Fay bent over him. "Paddy?" He breathed, he slept.

  Fay arose went to the port. Delta Trianguli was a small cold ball of light astern, the planet inconspicuous among brighter stars.

  Three days passed. There had come no cruising shark of a Koton ship. Perhaps they were safe. Perhaps Zhri Khainga preferred the thought of his golden sheets to revenge.

  Paddy awoke on the fourth day. "Fay," he muttered.

  "Yes, Paddy dear."

  "Where are we?"

  "We're safe, Paddy, I hope."

  "Still no power?"

  "Not yet. But I found what happened and we can fix it as soon as you get well. I'm trying to pull it apart — a bus-bar that was shorted and fused. It made a terrible mess."

  "Paddy lay still a moment. His face twitched, his mouth pulled up at the corners in a grimace. He said, as if to himself, "Whatever happens, it's the Son that did it to himself and his own people. It was his own treachery, his own fault, and none of mine..."

  Fay bent over him anxiously. "What do you mean, Paddy?"

  Paddy muttered, "I planned all the time to tell him, since I'm no murderer, before he ever used the sheets."

  "What did you do?"

  Paddy sighed, turned his head away. "There's a wealth of destruction in a dot, Fay — a little dot."

  Fay peered at his face. Was he asleep? No.

  "Paddy, what are you talking about?"

  "Fay," said Paddy weakly, "the space-drive has been my fascination ever since I first heard about it and it's like to been my death — twice, three, four, a dozen times. And one of the times was on Aghabats, where in my ignorance I thought I could burrow into the manifolding shop and curl them out by the dozen.

  "I found that it wasn't so simple but a very delicate matter. Power floods into the tube from one end and there's fifteen coils and they pound it and knead it and bind it and curl it like a big kick-hammer.

  "When all the strengths are just right, that great energy snarls and fights but it winds around on itself and there it stops — a tight little core of space-warp. But if one of the coils is off, then there's a weak spot and all the energy breaks out and knocks the world apart.

  "When I tried my hand at it on Akhabats there wasn't any power in the line except a bit of static charge but the kick nearly blasted away the shop."

  "So?" asked Fay breathlessly.

  "So — when Zhri Khainga, the Koton, pulls the switch — all hell will break loose."

  "But Paddy," whispered Fay, "why? Those were the sheets we got from the dead Sons."

  "There's two little decimal points that make the difference, Fay. Two little dots. On the Badau and the Loristan sheets, the duplicated numbers. I had just time for it. Two little marks."

  She straightened from her bent position, looked away.

  "It was to be our ace in the hole," said Paddy. "Sure I'd have told him about it over space-wave once we got clean away because I'm no hand for the killing, Fay. But now, whatever happens is through himself since he cut off our power and it's his hard luck."

  "It's the ninth day, Paddy," said Fay.

  "Humph. Two days for the ship to pick him up, four days back to Montras, three days. It should be time for news."
/>   He turned on the receiver, functioning very feebly from the power of the cell in his flash-light.

  A Shaul spoke, and they strained their ears to hear.

  "Attention — word from Zhri Khainga, son of Langtry from Koto. Paddy Blackthorn, the convict and assassin, has been killed on a dead-planet hide-out by a Koton patrol-ship. No further details have been released. Thus the greatest manhunt in the history of space comes to an end and interstar traffic returns to normal."

  "Is that all then?" Paddy asked pettishly. "Merely that I'm dead? Sure that would be no news to me were it true. I'd be the first to know it. Are there no explosions, no disasters? Is Zhri Khainga so cautious that he doesn't trust the data of his father and his unhealthy uncles? Why does he wait then?"

  "Hush, Paddy dear," said Fay. "You'll excite yourself. Let's get back to our work. In another day we'll be repaired and send a warning message."

  "Och," said Paddy. "The suspense is killing me. Why doesn't he drop the other shoe?"

  * * * *

  Paddy exclaimed, "The news. Fay, it's time for the news."

  Fay wiped her face with a greasy hand. "If you'd wait ten minutes we'd be done. There's just he clip and welding on that gang-switch. And then we'd hear the news on ship's power."

  Paddy limped unheeding to the receiver and then the thin whistle of space-wave sang through the cabin. Then, gong, gong, gong!

  "Disaster!" cried the Shaul voice. "Grave disaster! Today an explosion took Montras off the face of Koto!"

  In a kind of numb attentiveness they heard the voice. "... Stupendous crater ... millions dead ... lamentations for the dead Son, Zhri Khainga..."

  Fay turned off the speaker. "Well, there it is. Don't worry any more. It's done. There goes Zhri Khainga and all his nerve-suits."

  I wouldn't have had it that way," said Paddy dully.

  She stepped over to him, took his face in her two small hands. "Look here, Paddy Blackthorn, I'm tired of your moping! Now you come help me put in that switch. Then we'll fly home to Earth."

  Paddy sighed, stood up, threw his arms around her. "That will be wonderful, Fay."

  "First we'll get rid of this space-drive information and then—"

  "And then we'll be married. We'll buy up all of County Cork," said Paddy with mounting enthusiasm. "We'll build a house a mile long and as high as necessary and champagne will flow out of every spigot. We'll raise the finest horses ever seen at Dublin Meet and the lords of the universe will tip their caps to us."

  "We'll get fat, Paddy."

  "Nonsense! And once a year we'll visit all our scenes of adventure again, just for old time's sake. Akhabats, Space-Ace, the Langtry planets — and this time they'll be running after us, hoping for the privilege of carrying our bags."

  "And don't forget the Angry Dragon, Paddy," said Fay. "We could visit there and be all alone. But now—"

  "But now?"

  A minute later Fay stood back, breathless. "First, that switch! Now you get back to work, Paddy Blackthorn. There's only ten more minutes of it, and then we're home for Earth."

  The End