Mission: Earth "Disaster" (6 page)

The inertia of the flying cannon's weight fought against the tug's acceleration.

SCREEECH! BONG!

The assassin ship disintegrated.

Heller flipped the tug upside down.

Through the viewport I could see the squashed hull, shedding fragments.

Two pale pink mists were all that was left of the assassin pilots, exploded by the vacuum of space.

"You all right?" said Heller. I thought he was talking to me. I started to answer and then realized that his question was aimed at the cat.

"Yow," said the cat.

"I'm sorry," said Heller. "But you'll just have to get used to it now that you are a member of the Voltar Fleet."

were drifting in black space amidst the wreckage of the assassin ship. The Earth was a liquid ball below, fifty thousand miles away.

Heller threw on the robot's switch. "Check any hull damage, Corky."

"You should not have shut off my voice. I could have given you some pointers."

I looked around. I wasn't able to tell where the tug's voice was coming from. It was son of spooky.

"Longitudinal seams entirely sundered, engines cracked, ammunition magazine–"

"Corky," said Heller, "NOT the flying cannon. Check your own damage."

"Oh, I am sorry, sir. The question was inadequately specific– meaning no criticism, sir. Please advise if you wish the data verbal or in printout form on your desk in the aft salon."

"Heavens," said Heller, "is it that extensive?"

"I am not used to working with you yet, sir. Your wish is necessary on certain matters. A question of substantive preference. My input expressly states that I am to make you happy if at all possible. Could I have an answer, please? My twenty-second subbrain is on hold."

"Verbal and printout," said Heller. "But let me have the data, please."

"There are two small scratches on the butting arms, sir. One is 3.4 inches long, 1/16 of an inch wide. The other is 2.7 inches long and 1/8 of an inch wide. Yard cost will be 2.7 credits."

"Is that all?"

"Well, yes, sir, but 'Is that all?' is inadequately descriptive. The absorbo-coat is breached and enemy detection gear will reflect from it. I suggest that this matter be handled at the earliest opportunity so that I can execute my actual purpose of preserving you from harm."

"You're a chatterbox," said Heller.

"Chatterbox ... chatterbox ... chatterbox ... No, sir. I don't have any such part, sir, and all gears are firm. I am a Mark XIII humanoid-approximation robot manufactured in–"

"Thank you," said Heller. "Any data you have on current ship condition is required."

"Yes, sir. I am fine, sir. How are you?"

"Fine," said Heller. "Is that end of data on ship condition?"

"There is another datum on hold in the eighty-fifth idling memory. I will give you that, sir. Two locational bugs were installed in me, one on the nose, the other on the tail, while I was idle."

"Ho, ho," said Heller. "So that's how the assassin pilot found me. Is there any sign of the other flying cannon?"

"I have no ships on my screens, sir."

"Very good. Take over control. Stay alert for the second ship. Proceed at low speed toward the coordinates of the black hole earlier recorded from the telescope. Don't make sudden divergences from course. I will be working inside and outside of the ship."

"Yes, sir. I am engaged on controls now, sir."

We began to move in relation to the scattered debris of the flying cannon.

Heller pointed at me and told the cat, "Watch him." He then went to a locker and began to get out a pressure suit. He inspected it with care and then he put it on.

He got some tools, a paint brush and paint squirter. He went into the airlock and closed it behind him.

I could hear his magnetic boots clumping on the hull, the sound carried through the metal. Then I got an awful start. His face appeared on the other side of the viewport, looking into the flight deck.

People in space helmets always look so unearthly, it makes one think of monsters. And to me, Heller was a monster anyway. He had plotted ceaselessly to do me in, he had murdered in cold blood the Antimanco crew, he had just shaken me up like dice in a cup with his insane, suicidal attack on that assassin pilot and here I was, chained to a pipe like some wild animal, completely at his mercy.

I must think of something and do something to get myself out of this. It would only be justice to do Heller in. Somehow I must still accomplish it. I was pretty certain that I could.

After about half an hour he came back in through the airlock and got out of his pressure suit.

He came back to the flight deck. He had two objects in his hand. He tossed them at me and they rattled against the bulkhead. "You knew those bugs were there, I am sure," he said. "Sitting on that secret could have cost you your life."

"I didn't think it was important," I said. "The fact that you have taken these off won't prevent the second pilot from finding us. They can spot the spacial turbulence of your drives. The moment you go near that planet again, the other one will pick us up." I had a sudden wild idea. "Why not just deliver me to Voltar?"

I scarcely dared breathe, watching him. If I could con him into taking me back home, I would be free and clear. Lombar Hisst hated him and Lombar, unbeknownst to Heller, now controlled even the Emperor.

"You're the least of my worries," said Heller. "I've got other things to do. I've got to get ready for this black hole."

I shuddered. That could be dangerous. "What do you care about this planet Earth anyway?" I said. "Why don't you just go home and forget it."

"It's a pretty planet," said Heller. "If I don't complete my mission, it will become uninhabitable. In another century or less, it will be so chewed up it won't even support life. Don't you care what happens to five billion people?"

"Riffraff," I said.

He raised his eyebrows. "Well, I guess one sees in others what he finds in himself," said Heller.

I seethed at the insult. Didn't he realize that he was talking to the future Chief of the Apparatus? Oh, I'd get even with him before this was over!

He opened a door into the engine rooms and propped it back. From where I was chained, I could watch him. He was doing something very peculiar indeed. On Voltar, an enormous spare time-converter drum had been put in the tight space. They had even opened the top of the hull to get it in. He had a wrench and he was working at the entry port into the huge drum.

The sign clearly said it mustn't be touched, that it would blow your hand off if you even reached in. And he was unbolting it.

"You'll blast us apart!" I shouted.

He didn't pay me any heed at all. He got off the big plate and calmly reached in!

I flinched as I waited for his arms to disintegrate.

They didn't.

He was pulling out a large object in wrappings. He carried it to the pilot deck and stripped it.

A LASER CANNON!

Oh, the sneaky Devil! That wasn't a time-converter spare at all! It was simply a way to put aboard equipment and hide it from the view of everyone.

He opened some plates in the overhead. He slid the laser cannon on to already prepared mounts. He shoved its nose into a forward space that would open if it fired.

He went back and got a second device. I did not know what it was. He bolted it in place beside the cannon.

"Why didn't you install that before we had to fight the assassin ship?" I wailed.

"Oh, these devices aren't cannon, exactly," he said. "They wouldn't have done much to that ship."

I blinked. They certainly looked like cannons. He was connecting them up to a set of controls on the panel that resembled firing controls.

He fastened down the plates in the overhead and the two devices were no longer in view. Then he went back to the drum and began to take out what looked like the slats of a dismantled cage. He carried these to the airlock, where he stacked them up. He added some other items to that pile. Then he put the cover back on the drum.

He closed up the engine rooms and sat down at the telescope eyepiece.

"Now that," he said, "is a very nice primordial black hole. Corky, speed yourself up and get your scanners going on target object. Input all data into banks and calculate."

The tug did a forward surge.

"Are you going to shoot that black hole?" I said. The man was clearly insane. "It would drink up every round. You might even shoot us through the thing into another universe!"

"Oh, those devices up there aren't for the black hole. I'm just getting things ready," said Heller.

What was he up to? If I had some clue as to his plans, maybe I could make him do something so I could get him.

"Well, what do you need a black hole for?" I asked.

"Fuel," said Heller. "Cheap fuel. They'll need hardly any oil when I am done."

Oh, Gods, he was going pell-mell to do in Rockecenter! Didn't he realize that any solution to the energy problem would ruin the Rockecenter monopoly? I certainly had to think of something that would WORK!

"You hungry?" he said casually, I thought he was talking to me and then I realized he was addressing the cat.

"Meow," said the cat.

"Keep an eye on the prisoner, Corky," said Heller.

I railed at my shackles. First I was being watched by a cat and now I was being guarded by a robot tug! Was there no end to this calculated program of degrading me?

I could hear Heller down the passageway. "Now, this is the chief mate's room," he was saying to the cat. "You're promoted. Here's your pan so you can relieve yourself. And here's your pillow. Here's your water bowl and here's your dish. Now, would you like a can of chicken or a can of tuna? All right, tuna it is."

I heard him then in the crew's galley, getting himself something to eat. He came back after a while, sipping at a canister of hot jolt. The cat came back, licking his chops. That did it.

"Aren't you going to feed me?" I said.

"I didn't know that riffraff deserved to eat," said Heller.

"You're insulting me," I said.

"I didn't think that was possible," said Heller, calmly sipping his hot jolt.

Rage burned in me. "According to regulations, prisoners must be fed!"

It worked. He handed me the hot-jolt canister.

I tipped it up.

It was empty!

"Gods, how you must hate me!" I snarled.

"Hate? That's a very strong word, Gris. One doesn't waste hate on a loathsome insect."

I gripped the canister so hard it crushed.

"Let's get one thing very clear," said Heller. "You lured my girl to her death. I am not even willing to go into the aft quarters of this ship because they remind me of her. You prate of duty and regulations: You had better cherish them. It is my duty to take you to trial. It is against regulations to kill a prisoner. Those are the only reasons you are alive, Gris. But I don't hate you. A thing has to amount to something to be hated. Now shut up, for I have work to do."

The cold, dispassionate contempt in his voice had been like an icy knife searching out my vitals. A new and horrible thought struck me. If he knew that I had personally killed the Countess Krak, even his sense of duty would not restrain him. I had not fully appreciated how much danger I really was in. Oh, I had better get myself out of this. I furrowed my brow in heavy concentration. I might never live even to get to trial!

He said to the tug, "Keep an eye on your clocks so we don't accidentally collide with this thing."

"Yes, sir."

Fear stabbed me. "Is that the only way you're going to know before we hit? How could you read it on that telescope if there's a time shift?"

"This telescope has a miniature time-sight element in it, but they also leak some gamma rays direct. You seem awfully nervy."

"I am."

"Good," he said heartlessly. "Maybe you'll get the idea how other people feel when you put them in terror."

I ignored his moralizing. The Hells with how other people felt. Once you got to worrying about that, you never could serve in the Apparatus. Or live with yourself either. I lifted my head to see through the pilot ports. Nothing but black sky and, a long way off, something that might be an asteroid.

"Sir," said the tug, "I think I'd better brake down from fifty thousand miles an hour."

"Oh, Gods," I said. "Don't have a breakdown out here!"

"Sir, do you wish me to record the remarks of that hostile prisoner, Gris?"

"Store them in transient memory," said Heller. "He won't be with us long—or in this universe either, for that matter. Come down to easy braking speed."

"Yes, sir. I read that we may be only 203.4 miles from the black hole."

"Good. Keep comparison with your universal absolute clock and brake the instant we cross the time band."

"Yes, sir. I have a flashout here from my 123rd subbrain concerning the prisoner, Gris. It is reading purple: solution. It has been working on the problem. May I give it to you, sir?"

"Go ahead."

"In compliance with the purpose to keep you safe, it is recommended as follows: Prisoner guilty of capital crimes including the ordering of your death. List of bases does not include Blito-P3. A legal point could be stretched and we could plead we were unaware of the existence of an officers' conference at Blito-P3. Solution: On arrival at black hole, use him as a test and pitch him through to some other universe. Holding for acceptance of solution."

I glared all around me. Even this tug had turned against me! And what a sadistic tug it was! A monster!

"The idea has merits," said Heller. "However, the answer is negative."

"Sir, please reconsider. His brain waves show extreme hostility. If he is going to some other universe as you say, I see no reason to postpone the matter. Your negative is incompatible with the purpose on which I run and is therefore illogical."